Past and Present
by rainiergirl
Summary: Past and present collide for Nick when a former love is called upon to help the team track down a serial killer.  Set Season 6, shortly after “Gum Drops.”  Nickcentric, with generous helpings of Warrick and a smattering of the rest of the team.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Past and present collide for Nick when a former love is called upon to help the team track down a serial killer. Set Season 6, shortly after "Gum Drops." References to previous episodes, but no real spoilers. Nick-centric, with generous helpings of Warrick and a smattering of the rest of the team.

**Rating:** Rated 'M' for harsh language, violence, and sexual content.

**Disclaimer:** I lay claim to the original characters of the Bad Guy and the Good Girl, but the rest of 'em belong to TPTB who bring to us the _CSI_ television series. I have no illusion that they're mine. If they were, Nick would never, ever, be on screen without his bare lip and his Hot Haircut and he would have a heck of a lot more storylines.

**Author's Notes: **I was inspired to try my hand at writing this by reading the superior works of Kristen, Kim, and Beth, and it is to them that I dedicate this. I especially want to thank Beth for her encouragement. I may have written it without you, Beth, but I never would have had the guts to post it had you not told me it had some worth. So, thank you.

This story was over a year in the making and was both a joy and a struggle. If you find that you enjoy it, please leave me a review every now and again to let me know.

* * *

They got the call at 5:45, just as the autumn dawn was breaking. It was a popular jogging trail, and already the first of the Monday morning athletes formed a crowd around the yellow tape. Field coroner David Phillips took no note of the growing assembly. Instead, he looked up from his crouched position by the body to the two CSIs who had responded to the call.

"You done taking pictures? I'm going to have to move the plastic to take a liver temp."

Warrick Brown took one more photo and then turned to his partner.

"Okay by you, Nick?"

Nick Stokes surveyed the body. They were obviously dealing with a dumpsite and not a primary scene. The body had been wrapped in plastic sheeting and left in the middle of the trail. There had been no attempt to hide it. The sheeting had been either torn away or opened up below the torso, revealing a nude adult female. The sheeting above the waist was securely in place, obscuring the woman's face and chest. Still, Nick could see the red through it. He crossed over to Captain Brass, who was trying to shoo people back away from the tape.

"Who called it in, Jim?"

Jim Brass nodded to a man in his twenties, clad in a jogging suit, giving a statement to a uniformed officer. Nick approached him.

"Sir? Nick Stokes, crime lab. The plastic on the body, did you move it at all?"

The man glanced over to the body and shook his head.

"No. I didn't touch anything. I knew when I saw her she was dead. Had my cell with me, called the police."

"Were there other joggers when you found her?"

"Nope. I was the first one on the trail this morning. Usually am. Others started coming by, though, after I found her. But at first it was just me and her and the dog."

"The dog?"

"Yeah. There was a big dog--yellow lab, I think--worrying at the plastic. It ran when I yelled at it."

Nick nodded his thanks and went back to Warrick. "Witness saw a dog," he reported. "Could be why the plastic is torn."

"Could be," Warrick agreed. "You ready to see the rest of her?"

"Yep." Nick turned to the assistant coroner. "Okay, Super Dave, let's see what we've got."

The young coroner took a blade from his kit and carefully slit the plastic, beginning at the back of the head and slicing down the center of the body to the open portion of the sheeting. He cleaved the plastic apart with his hands and then drew back abruptly. There was a murmur from the crowd, low at first, and then building to a loud cacophony. The jogger who had found the body was vomiting into a clump of juniper bushes.

"Get 'em back!" Captain Brass barked to the two uniformed officers on the other side of the tape.

The crowd was herded further back into the park to stand by the picnic tables, talking among themselves in low, horrified voices. Brass stood over the body, studying it along with the two CSIs. The woman was blond and young, between twenty and thirty, probably. A white cord was wound around her slender neck and dark smudges marred the pale, waxen flesh below her open blue eyes. She had an athletic body type with well-toned upper arms and no visible body fat. At least, none that could be seen beneath the smears of blood on her torso.

"What the hell," Brass muttered. "Is it completely gone?"

David Phillips opened the gash in the plastic a bit wider. "Yes," he confirmed. "It is. It's not detached in the plastic."

Nick shook his head, peering down at the gory mess where the woman's right breast should have been. "There's a sick bastard out there."

"You got that right, bro." Warrick's camera clicked as he took photos, circling the body to make sure he covered all angles.

Brass was on his cell phone. "Yeah. Okay, we won't do anything else until you get here. Thanks, Gil."

Nick frowned. The pronounced Texas accent revealed his agitation. "You called Grissom? Warrick and I responded to this. We got it."

"Sorry, Nicky. I'm playing a hunch right now, but if I'm right, this is bigger than the two of you. Hell, bigger than all of us."

Before Nick could respond, Brass ventured back into the crowd, quizzing the jogger who had already given his statement, and who by now seemed a little disgruntled, not to mention a little shaky and pale.

Warrick looked at Nick and shrugged. "I guess we don't get to know what his 'hunch' is. Better not do the liver temp, David, until we get orders from the boss. What can you tell without it?"

"Lividity is set, and she's in rigor. It's been ten hours, at least. I'll know more when we get her back to the morgue."

"Whenever that will be," Nick muttered.

Warrick put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't get your panties in a bunch. Let's walk the trail; see if we can find anything. I'll take north, you go south. We'll meet back up when Grissom gets here."

Nick sighed his displeasure, but he headed slowly down the trail, eyes scanning the ground with each step. He and Warrick had already done some work. They had checked the strip of grass between the nearest parking lot and the trail and had found no drag marks. There were no grass stains on the plastic, so it was unlikely the body had been dragged across the grass. They were near the handicap parking area and this was a handicapped-accessible trail, so it was possible, they had supposed, that the body could have been dragged across the asphalt connecting the parking lot to the trail. No way of telling until they got the plastic back to the lab to see if it was scratched up. There had been some footprints in the grass, but they were indistinct. They did find a blood drop, just one, a few feet away from the body, but it had tested as not human.

And there didn't appear to be anything else to find. Nick walked the trail for fifteen minutes, then headed back at a quick pace. He wasn't surprised to see Grissom getting out of his Denali to join Brass in the parking area behind the picnic tables. Warrick had already returned and he shook his head at Nick's questioning gaze.

"Me neither," Nick offered before Warrick could ask the question.

Grissom spoke to Brass for a moment and then the two of them walked from the lot to the body in the center of the trail. Grissom eyed it critically.

"Well?" Brass sounded impatient.

Gil Grissom took his time in answering. He circled the body slowly, rounded shoulders hunched as he inspected the corpse.

"Could be," he said finally. "Strangled, wrapped in plastic. Breast removed. But it could also be…"

Nick had had enough. "You two want to fill us in on this, or should we just go on home?"

As he often did, Grissom chose to ask a question instead of answering the one posed to him. "Did you and Warrick take photos of the parking lot and the grass? And the body before the plastic was cut?"

Nick shot him a scalding look. "Damn, Gris. No, we let Dave cut it up before we…"

"Of course we took photos," Warrick broke in, just as annoyed as Nick but trying not to sound like it. "And before you ask, we didn't find anything probative in the parking lot, the grass, or either direction on the trail. One blood drop; animal, not human. Now do we get to know what you're doing here?"

"What I'm doing here," Grissom said pointedly, "is trying to determine if this is the work of a serial killer."

Nick looked up sharply. "A serial?"

Grissom nodded. "Signature's the same as the recent ones in Denver and in Atlanta before that."

The light went on for Warrick. "The Atlanta Hacker?"

"That's the unfortunate name the media has given him, yes. And not entirely accurate, if this is indeed his work."

Grissom looked again at the woman's chest. The breast had been cleanly removed, almost with surgical precision.

"It could be him," Grissom speculated. "If he's gone from Atlanta to Denver, he could be on the move again, still moving west. But," he continued, "I was trying to say that this could also be a copycat at work."

"Maybe. But she's just as dead either way," Brass said sourly. "I'm going back to the station. I'll make some calls to both Denver and Atlanta. See if they'll fax some files. Call me if you find out anything in the morgue."

Grissom watched Brass's retreating back and then turned to David Phillips. "Okay, David. You and your guys can take her. Don't do anything to her until we get there."

He looked at Nick and Warrick. "You two sure you got everything you can here? We can't afford to make any mistakes on this one."

"We can never afford to make any mistakes," Nick said grimly. "And yeah, we're done here. That is, unless you want to retrace our steps."

Grissom held up his hand. "Look, this is going to explode if it is a serial. He's killed seven in Atlanta and six in Denver. The media will be all over this if we get another one here. The guy will have crossed three state lines and the FBI will be called in. It's going to get messy."

"We can handle messy," Warrick said confidently.

"I know you can," Grissom agreed. "So this is still your case and you two are going to call the shots. For now. But I'm going to keep my hand in, and I want you to call on Sara, Catherine, and Greg if you need to. This is graveyard's number one case right now."

Warrick and Nick exchanged knowing glances, two familiar partners confident in each other and in the job they had been assigned to do.

"Okay," Nick said. "Let's get over to the morgue."

They arrived only shortly after the body, but already Albert Robbins, Clark County's chief medical examiner, had it laid out on a steel table in the center of the room. Grissom left to go back to the lab, but Warrick and Nick stayed to process the body. Warrick took more photos of the plastic sheeting and then helped Doc Robbins remove it. He bagged it and, taking Grissom up on his offer to employ other members of the team, called Greg Sanders on his cell to come get it and take it back to fume for prints.

They scraped under the nails and inked and printed the fingertips. Greg showed up and stared down at the body before giving a low whistle.

"Someone sure did a job on her. Did you find the missing, uh…"

"No," Nick said quickly. "We didn't."

"Bet the bastard took it," Greg said. "Souvenir."

Neither Nick nor Warrick responded, and they watched Doc Robbins examine the victim, taking photos of the anomalies he pointed out. Besides the obvious missing breast and ligature marks around the neck, there was bruising on the heels of both feet. Postmortem, Dr. Robbins noted. And even more disconcerting, bruising around her genital area, also postmortem, according to Doc Robbins.

Greg's eyes widened. "You mean he did her _after _she was dead?"

"Would you rather she had been alive?" This from Grissom, who had just entered the room with Brass.

"No. It's just that this is the first…I didn't mean…"

Warrick leaned over to Greg. "Relax," he said lowly. "He knows what you meant."

Greg may have been green and experiencing his first evidence of necrophilia, but the rest of them weren't. They had seen it before, and after a sad shake of their heads were ready to move past it.

"I'll do a kit," Doc Robbins said. "See if there's semen."

"Anything else?" Grissom asked.

"Adhesive residue around both wrists. Probably from duct tape. Everything else pretty much what you would have expected. Preliminary examination reveals cause of death was asphyxia by ligature, about fourteen hours ago. I'll know more after I open her up. Breast tissue was removed postmortem, most likely with a surgical instrument. I found a small puncture wound in the left shoulder. Could be from a hypodermic. I'll do a blood draw and you can take it back with you to tox."

Warrick turned to Brass. "You get Denver or Atlanta to send you something?"

Brass smiled. "Better. Atlanta's sending some_one_."

"Yeah?"

"Yep. Some crackerjack forensic psychologist."

Grissom pursed his lips. "A profiler?"

"She's supposed to be good, Gil," Brass assured him. "Worked the cases in Atlanta from the beginning and was called in to Denver to work those, too. If anyone can tell us if this is the real McCoy or a copycat, she'd be the one to do it."

"I hope so," Grissom said. No sense arguing about a done deal. And besides, he'd worked with a few profilers in his time who actually had cogent information to contribute. The sooner they found out if they had a serial killer on the streets of Vegas, the better.

Brass consulted a piece of paper in his hand. "Her plane gets in at eight tonight. One of you jokers want to pick her up, or should I send a uniform to do it?"

"I'll do it," Greg offered. "She can profile me."

Brass held up his hand. "Down, boy. She has a Ph.D. after her name. Probably at least fifty."

They all looked sideways at Grissom and he scowled at them. Nick didn't partake in the joke. If the psychologist from Atlanta was who he thought it was, she wasn't fifty. She was thirty-two, and he was betting she was every bit as attractive as the last time he saw her. He knew Greg wouldn't regret his offer to escort her from the airport. But he had to be sure.

"You got her name?" Nick asked. He tried to sound casual, but his heart was beating so fast it was becoming painful, and it was quite an effort to appear calm. He hoped he was pulling it off.

Brass looked once more at the paper in his hand. "Caroline Brighton. _Dr_. Caroline Brighton, Ph.D.," he added, looking pointedly at Greg.

Nick had known what the detective would say even before he asked the question. How many crackerjack forensic psychologists could there be in Atlanta? Still, the familiarity of the name caused him to draw in his breath sharply and he mumbled something about taking the fingerprint cards back to the lab. He grabbed them and left the room, looking around to see if anyone was watching before leaning on the wall for support. Caroline Brighton. Carrie. In ten hours past and present were going to collide and now he had to figure out the best way--any way, really--to brace himself for the impact.


	2. Chapter 2

The plastic sheeting that had been wrapped around the victim's nude body had revealed no prints. Greg had enlisted Sara's help after he had fumed it, thinking he was missing something, but she couldn't find anything, either. The rest of their evidence was still backed up in the various labs. Dayshift had a triple the day before, and they were swamped. It looked like a case of a love triangle gone wrong. Jilted husband killed his wife and her lover, then turned his gun on himself.

It seemed pretty cut-and-dried, but there was a lot of evidence from a triple and it all had to be processed. It was collected during Conrad Ecklie's watch, and he wasn't moving it back down the line for anyone. They all knew that two words from Grissom would make him step aside, but Grissom was reluctant to utter "serial killer" to anyone at the moment, especially Conrad Ecklie. Until he knew more, he wasn't going to push anyone's alarm button, most of all the assistant lab director's. Some alarms had a quicker trigger than others.

So by the time shift was over, they still didn't have any information on the fingerprints, the tox screen, or word from the DNA lab on the presence of epithelials from the cord. Grissom sent them home to get some sleep. He wanted Warrick and Nick back by 8:30 so they would be there when Dr. Brighton arrived, and Greg was still insistent that he be the one to pick up the psychologist from the airport. Sara and Catherine would come in at midnight and finish up, hopefully, their work on the previous night's armed robbery and assault at an ATM on Fremont.

Nick had gone home but he didn't sleep. He went for a run, took a shower, ate some breakfast, checked out ESPN, the Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet to see if there was anything on worth watching. His usual routine. He settled on a show about a raptor recovery facility in Montana that rehabilitated wounded birds of prey found in Yellowstone National Park. It was a good show, with fantastic scenery of Yellowstone, and he watched it until he was drowsy. Then he headed for his bedroom, pulled down the light-blocking shades, and crawled into bed.

He gave up trying to sleep after lying there for a few hours, thinking of nothing but seeing Carrie again, trying to predict how he was going to react when he saw her for the first time in ten years, trying to predict how she was going to react when she saw him. And then he tried so hard _not_ to think of her that all he could focus on were ways to make himself not think of her, and that kept him awake, too. That, and worrying about how tired he was going to be if he worked a fourteen-hour shift without sleep. Finally he got up and went to the health club. Swam some laps, did some reps in the weight room, found a guy to play racquetball with.

When he got back home he was tired enough, all right, but when he stretched out on the sofa to take a nap, his mind went into overdrive again and sleep eluded him. He spent the rest of the day puttering around the house, vacuuming carpets that weren't dirty, organizing closets that weren't cluttered, and straightening pictures that weren't crooked. It was almost a relief when it was time to go back to the lab. Whatever happened when he saw Carrie again, it had to be better than this nerve-racking anticipation.

Back at the lab, Warrick found him in the breakroom, pacing back and forth with a cup of coffee in his hand. Warrick eyed him critically.

"Hey, buddy. You all right?"

"Yeah," Nick said. "Why?"

"Well, for one thing you're pacing around like a cheetah in a zoo cage, and for another, you look like crap."

"Oh, that's just great," Nick said bitterly. The last thing he wanted right now was to "look like crap."

"Sorry, bro. Just telling it like it is. Anything you wanna talk about?"

Nick considered. It might help to talk to Warrick, but on the other hand he was feeling pretty vulnerable right now. He had concluded that he wasn't so much nervous about seeing Carrie again as he was afraid of seeing her again. Afraid that seeing her was going to bring back memories and emotions that he had spent the better part of ten years trying to avoid. And he was just as afraid that talking to Warrick would bring them to the surface, and now was definitely not a good time.

"No, man. It's cool. Didn't sleep much. Thinking about the case, I guess."

Warrick nodded in sympathy. "I know. Me, too. But we'll figure it out. I bet when that profiler gets here she's going to tell us that there's not enough in common with the others to be the serial. Sure, we've got one sick bastard on our hands, but at least it won't be a serial killer."

"You're probably right," Nick agreed. "Guess we'll find out when she gets here." He looked at his watch. "That is, if Greg ever brings her here."

Greg Sanders was taking his time driving back to the lab. He had determined that if Caroline Brighton, Ph.D., was indeed fifty he would hightail it back and take the fast route without all the traffic. But as it was, he was in the lineup on the Strip, stalled in traffic and enjoying the companionship of the woman beside him. Dr. Brighton was in her early thirties, he figured, and she was one tall drink of water.

She was pushing five-ten, with long legs that he could tell were toned and shapely even beneath the tailored slacks that she wore. She was slender, but not skinny, with curves in the right places, even though her breasts and hips were a little on the spare side, Greg thought. But she was pretty, and that made up for it. She had a graceful, elegant neck and long, slender fingers. Greg had peeked down at her feet, but he was disappointed to find that she wasn't wearing open-toed shoes. But he imagined that her toes were long and slender as well. She had nicely curved lips that were quick to smile and a well-shaped nose that was, surprisingly, sprinkled across the bridge with light brown freckles. Her hair was light brown, too, with golden highlights streaked through it. She wore it loosely pulled back and it hung just below her shoulders. But he liked her eyes the best. They were hazel, with flecks of green and brown in them, and they sparkled when he pointed out to her all the big hotels, and especially when they happened to be in a jam in front of The Mirage and the volcano erupted.

By the time he pulled into a parking space outside of the lab, Greg was smitten. He took her inside and gave her a quick tour, bumping into Warrick as he was coming out of the toxicology lab.

"You get your report back?" Greg asked, but Warrick shook his head.

"No. Another two hours out, at least." He looked appraisingly at Dr. Brighton. "Introductions, Greg, or did you forget your manners?"

Dr. Brighton smiled gently and Greg blushed. "Sorry, Warrick. Dr. Caroline Brighton. Dr. Brighton, Warrick Brown. You'll be working with him on the case."

Warrick smiled at her. Not all Ph.D.s looked like Grissom, he was pleased to note. "Well, not just with me."

"Right," said Greg. "So where is Nick? I'll introduce him, too. Hate to be accused of not having manners."

"Print lab," Warrick said, but he put a hand on Greg's shoulder as Greg started to walk away. "Uh-uh. I'll take it from here. Grissom said he wanted to know when you got back here. He's in his office."

Greg sighed and reluctantly left the psychologist in Warrick's care.

"How was the flight?" Warrick asked.

"Long."

"So was your drive back from the airport, I bet. Did he take you down roads you can actually get around on, or down the Strip?"

Dr. Brighton smiled. It was warm and genuine, and Warrick was beginning to see why it took so long for Greg to get her back to the lab. "The Strip. He was a good tour guide. I saw a volcano erupt."

She had a soft southern accent that reminded Warrick of Nick's, but her drawl was less pronounced.

"So, you from Georgia?"

"No. Texas. Fort Worth, originally."

They had arrived at the print lab and stopped in front of the door.

"Speaking of Texas," Warrick said, "you're about to meet a fellow Texan. He's the other CSI who's working the case."

Dr. Brighton peered into the room and then nervously tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She smoothed the travel wrinkles out of her tan slacks and then kept the palms of her hands pressed against her thighs, her head bent. Warrick looked at her with concern. She was breathing a little hard, suddenly, and he wondered if she might be feeling sick.

"You okay?"

She straightened up and nodded at him reassuringly. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a little tired. It really was a long flight."

Warrick nodded in sympathy. "We could get you checked into your hotel, do this after you've had a chance to rest."

She shook her head adamantly. "No. I want to see the body. I won't get any rest until I look at it."

"Okay. Nick and I will take you to the morgue."

Warrick stuck his head into the open door of the print lab. "Where's Mandy?"

Nick was looking at a computer screen and didn't turn around. "Convinced her to take a break, finally. She's working a double. She's got it up on screen for us, though"

Warrick stood next to him and looked at the screen as well. "No match found" was flashing across the terminal.

"Damn. So we have a Jane Doe."

"Yeah," Nick said. "For now, anyway."

He straightened up and turned around, facing the door. Carrie was standing there, framed by the light in the hallway, and she literally took his breath away. It had been so long, and he could never seem to bring himself to look at the pictures he had of her. He had forgotten. Forgotten how straight she stood, how poised she was. She was still slender, still had the splash of freckles across her nose. She had highlighted her hair and the streaks caught the light. He wanted, more than he'd wanted anything in a long time, to reach out and touch it, to feel the silky smoothness of it between his fingers, to undo the tie that held it back and watch it tumble around her shoulders.

He had wondered what his reaction would be when he first saw her, but he hadn't counted on this. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and stood rooted. She was motionless, too, watching him. Warrick went to her and took her by the elbow, thinking she was reluctant to enter until she was introduced, and ushered her into the room. She had tears in her eyes, but Warrick didn't seem to notice. Nick did. He pulled a tissue from the box by the computer and held it out to her.

"This is hard, huh?" He couldn't think of anything else to say. He gave her the tissue and backed away from her, wanting to touch her, afraid to touch her.

"Yeah," she said softly, "it's hard." She blew her nose. "I thought I was ready. I sure thought about it enough these past ten hours."

He knew how that felt. He said what he should have told her in the first place. "You look good, Carrie. Really good."

She looked up at him and then quickly away, the tears that had welled in her hazel eyes escaping and slipping down her cheeks.

Nick's hands were back in his pockets. "There's, uh, the ladies' room three doors down. On your left."

She nodded gratefully and hurried from the room, almost running down the hallway. Nick sank into a chair and braced his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands. Warrick had been watching the interplay and now stood dumbfounded. There had been so much emotion, so fast, from the two of them that he could still feel it in the room. He put a hand on Nick's bent back.

"You all right?"

Nick shook his head. He felt suddenly exhausted, was sure that if he closed his eyes now that the sleep he had wanted so desperately earlier that day would come to him in an instant. Instead, he raised his eyes to meet Warrick's.

"Let's just say that we don't seem to be too good at reunions."

"Yeah," Warrick agreed. "I saw that. I guess that's what had you all tied up in knots in the breakroom earlier, huh?"

Nick shrugged, but Warrick pressed on.

"You had something going on with her back in Texas?"

Nick just looked at him. That was one way to put it, he supposed. But he was too tired to explain it, and he knew with certainty that he couldn't talk about Carrie right now, about him and Carrie, if he expected to hold it together. He rose from the chair.

"Some other time, man. Can you wait for her and take her to the morgue? I'll get Brass and Grissom and meet you there."

"You got it." Warrick left the room and positioned himself outside the women's restroom door while Nick headed toward the opposite end of the hallway.

It took the psychologist a while to come out, and Warrick decided she must be having a good cry. There was a story behind those tears, no doubt about it, but he wasn't going to get it out of Nick, and he had only just met Dr. Brighton and couldn't ask her. Sure made him wonder, though. When she came out, she was calm and collected and her makeup had been repaired.

"Thanks for waiting," she said to Warrick. "I'm sorry about that. It really has been a long day."

"Don't worry about it," Warrick assured her. "But I'm afraid it's going to get longer. You ready to see the body, Dr. Brighton?"

She smiled at him. "Anyone who sees me cry gets to call me Carrie."

She didn't seem at all self-conscious, and it put him at ease, which he was grateful for. He wasn't sure what he had witnessed between her and Nick, but it had made him feel a little bit like an intruder.

"Carrie, then. Let's go see what you can tell us."

As soon as they reached the morgue, Carrie was all business. Warrick could see no indication, either from her or from Nick, of the previous emotions in the print lab. Warrick dispensed with introductions to Doc Robbins, Grissom, and Brass quickly. They could all tell the psychologist was anxious to take her first look at the body. Doc Robbins pulled the sheet completely back to reveal the entire length of the corpse. As soon as the torso, with its missing tissue, was exposed, Carrie drew in her breath sharply. Nick quickly stepped beside her and hovered close to her, as if to catch her should she faint.

"Car…uh, Dr. Brighton? You okay?"

She looked at him in annoyance and held her gaze until he backed away. "I assure you, Mr. Stokes, I am not squeamish in a morgue."

Warrick looked down to hide a smile. So that's the way they were going to play it. There was security in formality, he supposed.

Carrie peered closely at the body, then walked slowly around the table, never taking her eyes off the dead woman.

"Describe how you found her," she instructed whoever might answer.

"Jogging trail in a well-used public park," Brass said. "At daybreak. No attempt to hide the body. No indication the site was anything more than a dumpsite."

"She was found unclothed?"

"Wrapped in clear plastic sheeting," Grissom said. "Nude underneath."

Carrie looked at Doc Robbins. "Breast tissue removed postmortem?"

"Yes."

"Evidence of sexual activity?"

"Also postmortem. Bruising around the genitals, vaginal tears. No semen present, though."

Carrie nodded and looked around the room quickly, then spied a magnifying glass and picked it up. She held it over the victim's wrist.

"Is this adhesive residue?"

"Yes," Warrick said. "Both wrists."

Carrie straightened up and stood silent. The others looked at her expectantly. Brass could no longer hold back the question they all wanted answered. If there was a serial killer loose on the streets of his town, he wanted to know and know now.

"Well? Is it the same guy?"

Carrie answered carefully. "The indications are there. Did you find any drugs in her system?"

"Don't know yet," Warrick said. "It's backed up in tox. Anything they should keep a lookout for when they get to it?"

Carrie nodded. "Ketamine. If it is the same killer, you'll find it. Both in the victim and in the cat."

Five heads simultaneously jerked up and five pairs of eyes stared at her.

Grissom spoke for all. "The cat? What cat?"

Now it was Carrie's turn to be confused. "You didn't find a cat?"

Grissom shook his head and Carrie poised the magnifying glass she was holding over the victim, examining the area between her legs. "Did you comb the pubic hair?" she asked.

Doc Robbins shook his head. "Not yet."

"Well, when you do, look for cat hair."

She looked up from the body and put the glass back. "In the first twelve of the thirteen previous victims," she explained, "there was a cat. Cord around its neck, wrapped under the plastic with the body. It was positioned between the victim's legs."

None of them had expected to receive such bizarre information, and it took them all a while to process. Grissom, as usual, was the quickest.

"But you didn't find one with the last victim?"

"We did, but it was found…separately." She seemed to hesitate, but then moved on. "But it had belonged to her, so we knew she was murdered by the same killer as the others."

"All the cats belong to the vics?" asked Brass.

"Yes. Pets." She could see them all formulating the questions they wanted to ask her, and she turned to Grissom.

"Dr. Grissom, when does the rest of your team come in?"

"Midnight."

She smiled. "Ah, graveyard. It's been a while. Okay, I think it would be best if we wait until they get here, then we can all sit down together. In the meantime, I have some things to go over with Captain Brass."

Grissom nodded his approval, but Warrick and Nick looked at each other in frustration. Grissom may have been into delayed gratification, but they weren't. If she had information, and she obviously did, they wanted it now. Warrick started to say something, but Brass had already ushered her out the door. He sighed. There was nothing to do now but check on the tox screen and wait for Catherine and Sara to come in. He jerked his head at Nick to follow him out, and the two of them left the room and headed back to the lab. The information from tox wouldn't be ready for a while, so they headed for the breakroom, taking the rare opportunity to grab a cup of coffee and relax, gathering energy for what promised to be a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

The tox report came back shortly after Sara Sidle and Catherine Willows arrived for what was, officially, the start of the graveyard shift. The team, plus Jim Brass and Caroline Brighton, was crowded into Grissom's office. Warrick held the report in his hand.

"You were right," he told Carrie. "Ketamine."

She held out her hand for the report and he gave it to her. She scrutinized it carefully.

"Same as the others. Enough in her system to subdue her but not enough to kill her."

"So," Brass said. "You ready to call it?"

Carrie shook her head. "I'm ready to tell you that whoever killed your vic had knowledge of the Atlanta and Denver killings, but I'm not ready to say it's the same killer."

Brass sighed in exasperation. "But you said all the indications are there."

"No. I said _the_ indications, not _all_ the indications."

"You need the cat," Catherine said simply. Warrick and Nick had filled her in on the psychologist's observations in the morgue, and as gruesome as the crime was and as disconcerting as it was to speculate that there was a possible serial killer in their territory, or even a copycat, Catherine liked a puzzle. And this one intrigued her.

"Yes," Carrie affirmed. "I need the cat. Did your Dr. Robbins find any hairs?"

Warrick and Nick shook their heads in unison.

"But the plastic was opened up on the lower part of the body," Nick offered. "And a witness saw a dog at the scene. There could have been a cat."

"Mr. Stokes, 'could have been,' as I'm sure you know, is not conclusive evidence."

Warrick glanced at Nick, but his friend's expression remained impassive. Nick and Carrie were still keeping up the pretense of formality, and if Warrick didn't know any better, he would have sworn that what he had witnessed in the print lab had never taken place at all. Except that Nick seemed to manage to avoid placing himself near Carrie ever since she had glared at him in the morgue, and even now he was seated as far away from her as the confines of the room would allow. For her part, Carrie's voice held a bit of an edge when she talked to Nick, Warrick thought, but maybe he was only projecting in light of what had happened earlier.

Carrie looked around the room, knowing what they wanted her to say, knowing why they had summoned her to this city. She did, in fact, know what the truth was. She had known as soon as the sheet had been drawn back from the body. She had spent so much time analyzing these crimes, and the perpetrator of them, that she could almost feel the killer still hovering over the body, scalpel in hand. But she was dealing with people who understood evidence, not intuition, and she wasn't going to give them anything less.

"Look. So much of this was in the media. There was footage of some of the bodies being taken away. They were wrapped in plastic. There was no footage of the nude bodies, but the fact that they were all strangled got out, as well as the fact that they were all missing a breast."

"Which breast?" Grissom asked abruptly.

"Which?"

"Yes. The right, the left, both?"

"The right. On each of the victims."

"Including ours," Greg pointed out, remembering with an ill-disguised shudder his first glimpse of the nude female in the morgue.

"Meaningless," Carrie told him. "It could have just as easily been the left."

"And the ketamine?" Sara asked. She had been a silent observer until now, but, like Catherine, she found the case fascinating.

"Well, it wasn't in the media, if that's what you're asking," Carrie said. "But, again, it's not conclusive. Ketamine's becoming an increasingly popular street drug among intravenous users, and it's becoming easier to get hold of. It could simply be what the killer had on hand to subdue his victim."

"What about the, uh, postmortem sexual activity?" Greg asked awkwardly. He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around that one. Carrie looked at him sympathetically. The majority of her career as a forensic psychologist had been spent working with sex crimes units. She tried to remember her reaction the first time she was on a case that involved necrophilia, but it had been so long ago she honestly couldn't remember, and there had been plenty since then.

"I'm not saying that you don't have a very disturbed perpetrator on your hands," Carrie said. "I just can't tell you it's the same one that was in Atlanta and Denver. Not without the one thing that only he would know about. Not without…"

"Yeah, we get it," Brass interrupted. "Not without Mr. Whiskers."

Grissom eyed the psychologist critically. She was cautious and thorough, and he admired that. But it was time to get from her what he knew she had to offer. She was a profiler, and right now what he needed was a profile. He knew she was just waiting for permission to veer from the conversation about "conclusive evidence" and give it.

"Dr. Brighton," he said, "so far you've told us what you know, and I appreciate that. Now it's time to tell us what you think."

Carried returned his level gaze. "I think," she said calmly, "that the killer has moved from Atlanta to Denver to Las Vegas. He's here."

Brass slapped his palm down on Grissom's desk. "I knew it."

"But," Carrie cautioned, "if you want me to confirm it to anyone else who asks, I won't. Without a cat, which was found in each preceding murder, everything I told you about why it could be a copycat stands."

Grissom nodded. "Understood. Now, what can you tell us?"

What she could tell them was considerable, and she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, getting comfortable. This was her area of expertise now, and she was confident and at ease as she spoke, every now and then the soft Texas accent apparent.

"He's a white male," she began. "Thirty to forty-five years old. He blends in, doesn't draw attention to himself. He has skills and probably works a non-managerial white-collar job. He's educated, with some college classes behind him or even a degree. He has a job that allows him to work bankers' hours, and his victims have all had jobs that mirror those hours. Most of the women were taken after they got home in the afternoon or evening and before they were to go to work the next day. A couple were taken on the weekends, including, it would seem, your victim. Most women were reported missing when they didn't show up for work the following morning, although some were reported missing by friends or relatives."

"Other commonalties among the victims?" Grissom asked.

"Besides the fact that they all had day jobs, they were all single, and they all owned a cat. They all lived alone. They were all Caucasian, but that's where it ends. The youngest was nineteen, the oldest fifty-three. There was no common hair color, no common body type."

"What about the dumpsites?" asked Warrick.

"He's bold," Carrie said. "Proud of his kills and wants them to be seen. All of the bodies were left in public areas, some quite well lit. But none of the sites had security cameras, so we can speculate that he staked them out first to make sure. All of the bodies were found between four and seven in the morning. For some of them that were left in regularly patrolled areas, officers reported seeing nothing one hour and the body the next."

"Which tells us again that he had staked out his dumpsites," Catherine concluded. "He knew when the patrols would be around and when his window of opportunity was."

"Yes," Carrie agreed. "But there's more to it than that. Each of the victims was found in areas they were known to frequent. I can guarantee you that when you get an ID on your vic, you're going to find out that she was a regular user of that jogging trail."

"He was stalking them," said Sara with dawning understanding.

"Is that how he knew they each had a cat?" asked Greg.

Carrie shook her head. "No. The other way around. He knew they had a cat, and I suspect he knew they were single. He's working off some sort of database, but we can get to that later after you've seen the notes on the other cases. He has a victim in mind, and then he watches her. Learns her routines, knows when she's home, if she has anyone with her or not. Learns the routines of her neighbors, too. Thirteen victims and not one witness."

"Maybe they weren't taken from their homes," Greg suggested. "Maybe the dumpsites are the places where he took them from in the first place. Takes them someplace to kill them, and then brings the bodies back."

"No. He's taking them from their houses, their apartments. In each case, the victim's cat was an indoor cat, and he had to gain access to get it. He took the cats and the women together."

"Why does he want the cat?" asked Brass.

"Let's just get through _what_ he does," Carrie told him, "and then we can talk about why he does it."

"Low-level entry?" Nick had been taking notes on what she had been saying. He and Warrick were still lead on this case, and he wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything.

"Yes. There was never any evidence of forced entry. They let him in. Either they knew him or they thought he had a reason to be there."

"What did the homes have in common?" asked Sara.

"Nothing, and I mean that. Some were in trailer parks, some in apartment buildings, some in upscale neighborhoods, although none in a gated community. And they weren't just in the city. In both Georgia and in Colorado, the victims lived both in the city and in the surrounding suburbs."

"None were killed in their homes?" Warrick, like Nick, was scribbling on a notepad.

"No. The homes weren't the primary crime scenes. He was taking them someplace to kill them. Chances are he took each victim to the same place, but wherever it was, it was never found. Not in Atlanta or Denver."

"And no evidence was found in the homes?" Grissom knew that a killer always left a piece of himself behind, and if she was going to tell him there was nothing, in thirteen instances, he wasn't going to be buying into it.

"No fingerprints, no DNA. Not even an errant hair. Not in the homes or on the bodies. He's careful; he may be in the system and is aware of that. Maybe a prior for animal cruelty or a low-level sexual offense. So he wants to avoid anything that could ID him. He has knowledge of forensics, at least from a layman's perspective. Probably reads crime books, watches the shows. They never found much more than some shoeprints on linoleum, some tire treads. But they weren't common among the homes. The closest thing found to a commonality were tracks through the grass at two of the houses in Georgia and on the sidewalk at one of the Colorado houses that were probably made by the wheels of a wheelchair. No reason for them to be there."

Nick looked up from his pad. "Any of those tracks found at a dumpsite?" He remembered looking for dragmarks in the grass at the park and finding none, and then speculating that the body could have been taken from the parking lot via the handicapped access to the trail.

"A teacher in Denver was found on the playground of the school where she taught. There were tracks in the grass there going from the parking area to the playground."

"So he could be using a wheelchair to get them out to his vehicle after he drugs them and uses the chair again when he's disposing of the body," Sara suggested.

"Probably driving a van," Greg said, his voice reflecting his excitement at having made the discovery.

Carrie watched them with a mixture of admiration and indulgence. She had a sense of deja vu. Six months ago she had sat down with the investigative team from Denver and had this same conversation. They had asked the same questions, had come to the same conclusions, had shown the same excitement when they thought they were on to something. But the Atlanta team, the people she worked with, was dedicated and thorough. They had seven serial murders on their watch in six weeks and they had worked around the clock trying to get a handle on them. She doubted that there was anything any team was going to hypothesize that the Atlanta team hadn't. It was almost painful to watch them try.

"Both labs were generous in offering to send you everything they can. You'll find photos of the wheelchair tracks, the homes, the bodies, the dumpsites, the cats, detective notes and reports. It should have been sent by now. I couldn't tell you how it's organized, though, or even if it's organized. Things moved at a pretty good clip after Captain Brass called."

"Thank you," Grissom said. "Just having it is going to be valuable. I'll get Archie to download it and see if he can get it sorted it out."

Jim Brass repositioned himself in his chair. He was becoming increasingly impatient with the psychologist's annoying habit of imparting information at the rate she wanted to give it rather than the rate he wanted to receive it. He wanted to get back to the station and fill in his guys, and he needed more.

"You have a cat, Dr. Brighton?"

Carrie looked at the detective in surprise, as did the others. That didn't seem like a very relevant question at the moment. She seemed to hesitate, but then answered.

"I used to. Why?"

"Then you know that cats don't do anything cats don't want to do. Sure, you can drug 'em, but you have to catch 'em first. He went to a lot of trouble to get those cats. Had to figure out somehow that the vic even had a cat. Then he had to catch 'em, drug 'em, transport 'em. Strangle 'em. So why? Why do all that?"

"Power," Carrie answered firmly. "Power and control. He has low self-esteem, probably a history of childhood abuse. Becoming the abuser instead of the abused helps him firm up his identity as a survivor instead of a victim. He uses violence to feel powerful, to feel in control. It's not unusual for violent criminals to have a history of animal abuse, and this one probably does, too. Cats are the most common targets, especially among juvenile males, and I'm guessing his abuse of cats dates back that far. But it's not just about the cats. It's about the women."

"He strangles the cats in front of the women," Catherine said, not asking a question. She knew where this was going now, and the case suddenly become far more disturbing than intriguing.

"Yes. He sees women as dominant over him. Again, stemming from abuse, probably by a female relative, most likely his mother. It's unlikely he's ever maintained a successful relationship with a woman. He may drug the cats to transport them, but necropsies have shown they were alive when they were strangled. For him, to make the victim watch while he strangles her cat is both power and revenge. Power over the woman as she pleads for her pet, revenge for whatever was done to him by a woman."

"And then he strangles the victim," Sara said softly.

"Like the cats, they were drugged into submission. But they were likely fully aware when they were killed. Each had evidence of having been strapped down with tape."

"Then he cuts 'em up," Brass said gruffly.

"Again, revenge, rage against the woman or women he has perceived has wronged him. It's unlikely he's ever had a healthy sexual relationship with a woman. By disfiguring them in the way that he does, he sees himself as attacking their sexuality."

"Are these sex crimes, then?" Sara asked.

Carrie paused thoughtfully before she answered. "These are crimes of revenge. He transfers his rage toward one woman to all women. But, yes, in some aspects they are sex crimes. The torture of the cats, the mental torture of the victims as they watch the cats, make him feel powerful. And that includes sexually powerful. He achieves arousal through their torment. The final act of strangulation and mutilation could be considered lust murder."

Greg was waiting to see if the psychologist was going to explain that further, and he felt a sense of relief when he could see that she wasn't. But he could fill in the blanks. The freak got off on killing his victim and slicing her up. And that allowed him to do to her after she was dead what he couldn't achieve while she was alive.

"He goes back to the bodies?" Greg tried to sound nonchalant, but just asking the question left a foul taste in his mouth.

"Not always. Some of the bodies were found within three hours of TOD, but even those showed evidence of molestation postmortem. And others he returned to, yes. Several—four, I think—were found more than three days after TOD."

Greg swallowed hard. He was fairly certain he was going to be thinking of the implications of that for a while. But there was still a question he didn't have an answer for.

"Does he, uh, keep the…removed tissue?"

"Most likely, yes."

"Like, as a trophy of the kill?" Greg wondered.

Carrie looked at him and for the first time seemed a bit uncomfortable.

"Not exactly, no. More than likely he uses it to achieve arousal while he…pleasures himself."

Greg cocked his head and looked at her, and she could see his mind working on that one.

"It wouldn't be the first case. Some of the decapitated heads of Ted Bundy's victims were found in his home. He said later that he kept them because of the power that he felt by having them there. He said he masturbated in front of them."

The room went suddenly quiet, all of the investigators now with an image in their minds that they would rather not have, and anxious to be rid of it.

Brass was the first to speak. "You seem pretty sure about all of this."

"I am," Carrie said confidently. She could see the doubt in his eyes, and not just his. She knew she couldn't explain it to them. Explain that, as relatively early into her career as she was, she had worked with so many sexual offenders, so many violent criminals, and had done such extensive research on so many others, that she could almost effortlessly select the pertinent information that she had gathered from their behaviors and put it together to form an accurate profile of someone whose identify remained unknown. She was good at it, she enjoyed doing it, and it came easily, almost intuitively, to her.

"It's what I do," she said simply.

"It sounds like you do it pretty well," Nick said.

Carrie smiled at him, and Warrick watched with interest. It was the closest thing to a personal encounter the two of them had attempted all night. Greg watched too, and he wasn't amused. If Nick was going to be turning on the Texas charm, he was going to nip it in the bud and fast. He staked his claim.

"I can take you to your hotel whenever you're ready, Dr. Brighton."

"Thank you." Her eyes sparkled at him. "Do you think you can show me that volcano again?"

Greg smiled triumphantly and shot a look at Nick, but Nick's passive expression didn't change.

"I can," Greg told her. "And dancing waters, too."

They rose to leave, but Grissom held up his hand. "Just one more thing. Why is he here? Why did he leave Denver, or Atlanta, for that matter?"

Carrie shrugged. "That I couldn't tell you. Atlanta is most likely home base for him. Whatever triggered him into killing the first time probably happened there. After the first kill, it became a kind of addiction for him. The aggression and power, the sexual euphoria. He had to seek it out again. But, remember, he's leading what on the surface would appear to be a functional life. He has a job, has routines. In fact, he's likely very organized to the point of having some characteristics of OCD. His behaviors with the victims were highly ritualized. He cut each the same way, wrapped the plastic the same way, tied the knots in the cords around the cats in exactly the same way each time.

"The point is, he has idiosyncratic behaviors that he's not likely to veer from if he can help it. My guess is he couldn't help it. I don't think the motivation for the relocation was related to the crimes. It might have been something job-related. Or more likely something about a relative that caused him to move each time. He has some kind of support system out there, and I doubt it's friends. Family both in Denver and Las Vegas that he's seeking out? In this case, Dr. Grissom, your guess is as good as mine."

"That I doubt," said Grissom generously. He turned to Greg. "Greg, take Dr. Brighton to get a rental car before she goes to her hotel. I just might need you for something around here other than a taxi service."

Greg sighed, feeling a little deflated, but if this was the last time he was going to get to drive the pretty psychologist around, he was determined to make the most of it. He was already planning the route in his mind, and it definitely wasn't a shortcut.

"Thank you," Carrie said. "I'd like to be notified when you get an ID on your victim. I'd like to be there when you process her home."

"We'll contact you," Grissom assured her.

Carrie turned to the group before leaving the room. "All of the victims had TOD within two days of the discovery of the previous body."

Brass looked up sharply. "So he could be doing all that to another one right now?"

"Yes," Carrie said. "He could. If not now, tomorrow night at the latest."

None of them had a response, and she left, Greg at her side. The rest of them remained in their chairs, each silently processing the wealth of information Caroline Brighton had given them, none giving any indication of leaving the room. Brass's cell beeped and he flipped up the cover and squinted at the small screen.

"406 at a pawnshop off-strip. Vega's got it. Who's meeting him there?"

And with that the normal rhythm of the night shift kicked in. Catherine and Sara were still working on their ATM robbery, so Grissom nodded at Nick and Warrick. They headed to the lockers to don vests and holster weapons, readying themselves for another night on the streets of Vegas.


	4. Chapter 4

Some nights eased by gently, with lulls between calls, with time to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee in the breakroom while waiting for lab results. This wasn't one of them. Nick and Warrick barely had time to log in the evidence they had collected at the pawnshop before they went right back out again in response to a trick roll at the Rampart. The others were on the streets, too. Greg had taken his sweet time getting back to the lab, but as soon as he did he went out on a robbery and assault at an AM-PM with Catherine and Sara.

Grissom had sequestered himself in his office, rewriting his report to the undersheriff. The media had reported the discovery of a body at a city park, but so far they had cooperated with authorities in keeping specific details, observed by spectators, out of their reports. But those same details had those same authorities breathing down Grissom's neck. He had been ordered to provide a thorough report as soon as "that profiler we got from Atlanta" had given her analysis. Their idea of "as soon as" and Grissom's were probably not quite the same, Grissom knew. It was the end of shift before he finally was satisfied that he had adequately explained why the psychologist from Atlanta could not and would not confirm the presence of the "Atlanta Hacker" in Las Vegas. He was putting the report in a manila envelope when Jim Brass stuck his head in the doorway.

"Hey, Gil. We got an ID on our Jane Doe."

Grissom looked up quickly. "Who?"

"Name's Jenna Scott. She taught an early-risers aerobics class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a city rec center. Manager called in when she didn't show up and no one could get hold of her."

"Would that be the rec center in the park where we found her?"

"It would. And her apartment complex is four blocks from there."

Grissom sighed. Regardless of what he had just written in his report, he knew this was further evidence that a serial killer was in their city. Dr. Brighton had said that the vic would be found to live close to the dumpsite, and she was right. Brass handed him a piece of paper.

"I'm headed over there now."

Grissom shook his head. "You ever go home, Jim?"

"I could ask you that."

"I'm just going to stay for the walk-through, take a look. Then I'm gone. I'm getting too old to work a double."

Brass chuckled. "I hear you on that one. Meet you there, Methuselah."

Grissom frowned at the reference and watched Brass leave the room. He hoped he could convince the detective to go home when he did. He knew that when they discovered the next body-and it was definitely "when" and not "if"-that all hell was going to break loose and sleep was going to be a rare commodity. They'd better catch it while they could. Even if he was going home in a few hours to get some shut-eye, he knew two CSIs who weren't. He dropped off his report at the front desk and headed for the locker room.

Sara and Catherine were coming out of the room and he nodded a good-bye to them. He lingered at the door for a moment, watching Warrick, Nick, and Greg as they took off vests and slammed shut locker doors.

"Man, I hate those nights when everything comes so fast you can't slow down," said Greg. "It takes me a while to shift into a lower gear. You guys wanna go out for breakfast?"

Warrick shook his head. "Better not. Tina doesn't have to go into work until later. If I hurry home I can spend some time with her for once."

"You know, you're not as much fun now that you've got that ring on your finger," Greg told him.

Warrick only smiled and wiggled his ring finger at him, the gold band catching the light. What he had in mind when he got home to his wife was a lot more fun than bullshitting over pancakes with Greg Sanders. There were times when he questioned his rash decision to marry, but this wasn't one of them.

"How 'bout you, Nick? Bacon and eggs at the ol' Greasy Spoon?"

Nick yawned. "Nope. It may take you a while to get into first gear, but I was there a long time ago. I didn't get any sleep yesterday. I'm gonna go home and crash."

Grissom hesitated. Nick was looking a little bit ragged and he knew, from overhearing bits of conversation here and there, that Warrick's hours were a bone of contention at the Brown household. He thought about handing over the processing of Jenna Scott's home to day shift, but just as quickly thought of the wrath that he would face from Nick and Warrick when they found out he had done that. He entered the room.

"We've got a name and address for our park vic," he announced.

Warrick eyed the paper Grissom grasped and held out his hand. "Let's have it."

Grissom held back, giving them the choice even though he knew what the answer would be. "Dayshift can take it. I don't have to tell you that this is one you take slowly, inch by inch. You're looking at another ten hours, at least."

"It's our case, Gris," Nick reminded him. "That hasn't changed, has it?"

Grissom handed the paper to Warrick. "No. That hasn't changed. I'll meet you over there."

Nick started to protest and Grissom held up his hand. "Just for the walk-through. I know you guys don't need me."

"But you might need my considerable skills," Greg offered. "You want some help?"

"Nah, we're good, man. Go get your pancakes. We'll call you in if we need you," Warrick told him.

They watched Greg leave, Grissom right behind him. Their boss turned around, remembering something.

"Call Dr. Brighton before you go. The front desk will be able to tell you what hotel was reserved for her. She wanted to be there when you process."

Grissom left and Nick turned to Warrick. "Could you do that? Call her, I mean."

Warrick didn't mind doing a favor for Nick, but he couldn't help but wonder how Nick was going to work side-by-side with the psychologist if he couldn't even make a simple phone call to her. It was going to be an interesting day.

"Sure, bro. No problem."

Nick shot his friend a grateful look and left to restock his kit. The last time he had talked to Carrie, before last night, had been on the phone, and that had been ten years ago. His instincts told him that if he heard her voice in his ear again now, those ten years would disappear in a heartbeat and his last phone conversation with her would reverberate back to him with painful clarity. And he was all about avoiding pain where she was concerned. Like Warrick, he knew it was going to be an interesting day.

"Interesting" turned out to be a bit of an overstatement. There was nothing in the one-bedroom apartment that even remotely hinted of foul play. That is, nothing except the fact that the occupant was dead and the occupant's pet, a small gray cat, according to the few neighbors who were home, was nowhere to be found. The litter box was there, the scratching post, the matching bowls for food and water. But no kitty.

Caroline Brighton had surveyed the room and zeroed in on the open can of tuna on the floor by the food bowl. The tuna was not consumed, and she suggested that Nick and Warrick document it carefully. Tuna cans had been found at the other homes as well, and the Atlanta team had speculated that the killer used this to lure the cats, simply scooping them up off the floor as they investigated their treat. Captain Brass had been right, she thought, remembering the cat she used to have; cats don't do anything cats don't want to do, and the killer obviously knew that also.

Beyond the can of tuna, there was nothing probative to be found. Grissom left shortly after they got there, and he even managed to get Brass to go, too. Brass had assigned Sofia Curtis to the case and put her on days so she could conduct interviews. At the moment, that wasn't very productive since most neighbors were at work, but she was knocking on doors anyway. Nick and Warrick processed the home, as Grissom had known they would, inch by inch. They found hairs, fibers, lifted prints.

Outside they lifted treads, concentrating on those that looked like they may have been made by a van. There was no indication that a wheelchair had been on the property. It was a busy complex and they processed the perimeter with a grim sense of futility. There were no security cameras and each apartment had its own outside entrance. There were some shoeprints leading up to Jenna Scott's door and they lifted those. Sofia had located and interviewed a girlfriend, and by all accounts Ms. Scott had many friends who were over frequently. It was going to take a while to sort it all out.

They were done by five, but they hung around, catching the neighbors as they straggled home from work over the next three hours, helping Sofia with the interviews. Jenna Scott had last been seen at a party in 24-B on Saturday night. No one had seen or heard anything since then that aroused suspicions. It had been a day of frustrations, and by the time the two CSIs returned to the lab it was 8:30. They had been on the clock for twenty-four hours.

They dropped off the evidence they had gathered, which was probably much more than they would normally have taken, at the various labs, and each time the lab tech shot them a look that said, "You'd better help with this." They had every intention of doing so, even if it meant working through another shift. They needed to process everything they could as fast as they could so that they would have something to compare the next one to. And they had no doubts there would be a next one. They left the trace lab last.

"You know," Warrick said, "they're not going to find anything in that tuna. Dr. Brighton said the cats had been injected."

"That doesn't mean we don't have it checked out," Nick said. "Besides, I'm getting a little tired of hearing what Dr. Brighton said."

"That _is_ why we brought her here," Warrick reminded him gently. There had been, as he suspected there would be, considerable tension between Nick and the psychologist when they processed the apartment. They still insisted on greeting each other formally, which made it a little uncomfortable for him, since she had instructed him to call her "Carrie." But he called her "Dr. Brighton," in deference to Nick, and the three of them worked together as professionals, but with no camaraderie.

Nick seemed to shrink into himself as if trying to make himself smaller when he was near her, and Warrick saw him actually jump back a step when she inadvertently brushed up against him in the cramped living room. So it was a relief when, three hours into it, she had decided they didn't need her guidance any more and she left to go back to the station. Brass had given her a corner of his office to set up her laptop, and she was trying to catch up on some paperwork that she had to abandon when she was called away from Atlanta. Warrick assumed she was back at her hotel by now, but she said she would come back in the morning to see if any lab results were in and to confirm any commonalties with the other cases.

Warrick hoped that now that she was out of the picture, at least for a while, he could get back to the easy rapport he had with Nick. Nick had been quiet, almost sullen, since Caroline Brighton's arrival, and frankly Warrick was finding it a bit wearing. He and Nick were professionals, first and always, on a scene, but they also kidded around with each other, made friendly bets about the results of evidence. The bets looked like competition to others, but they both knew it was friendship. It was in friendship that Warrick broached the subject one more time.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Nick shook his head firmly. "Nope."

Warrick sighed and Nick could sense his frustration. He put his hand on Warrick's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, bro. Come on, let's go see if we can ID some of those tire treads."

They were still at it when the rest of the team came in at midnight. Grissom found them hunched over the tread lifts with magnifying glasses, trying to determine the make of tire by comparing it to printouts they had gotten off the computer database. The supervisor looked at the stack of lifts they had already gone through. He raised an eyebrow.

"How many of those things did you guys lift?"

"Either not enough or too many," Warrick said sourly. Who knew if they were doing any good, checking treads from the parking lot of a 120-unit building? Tomorrow night, when most of the residents were home, they would go back and check the lifts against the parked vehicles, see if they had one that didn't belong.

Grissom tried to convince them to go home, but to no avail. Both Nick and Warrick had reached that point when they were on auto-pilot, past tired, and had tricked themselves into thinking they could just keep on going, like Energizer bunnies. Besides, they wanted to go back to the park at daybreak and they were afraid that if they went home and to their beds they wouldn't be able to get themselves going again. So Grissom left them to it, not willing to command them home, knowing they'd pay for it later.

There were fewer calls than the previous night, but they did get another robbery call at another convenience store. Grissom responded to it, with Greg in tow. When they returned just before daybreak, they printed off the photos and gave them to Catherine and Sara to make comparisons with the previous night's robbery at the AM-PM. The women were in the layout room when Caroline Brighton returned to the lab. Catherine looked at the clock when the psychologist entered the room.

"You're here early. Did you get enough sleep?"

"Plenty. I went to bed early. I thought I'd check and see if any of the evidence from Jenna Scott's home has been processed yet."

"Some of it," Catherine said. "I'm not sure where it stands at the moment."

Warrick and Nick had finally shown signs of fading, and Warrick had headed for the lockers, saying something about hoping a hot shower and change of clothes would rev him up. Nick had shown the most sense by stretching out on the couch in the breakroom and sacking out.

Catherine saw Dr. Brighton hide a yawn.

"I'm not tired, really," she said in answer to Catherine's look. "I left without getting my morning cup of coffee, is all. Can't seem to start my day without it."

"I'll get you some," Catherine offered.

The psychologist held up her hand. "No, no. I can get it. I'll bring you back some. Breakroom, right?"

Catherine nodded and watched her leave. Normally she was the first to bristle when someone from outside was called in on a case, but she had to admit she was grateful Dr. Brighton was here. Catherine found that she liked her for reasons beyond the insight she brought to the case. Yes, she was professional and efficient, but she was also personable and had fit in well with the team. But, Catherine thought as she waited for Dr. Brighton to bring back their coffee, she sure was slow to pour out cups of caffeine.

"Maybe she had to brew another pot," Sara said as she saw Catherine look out into the hallway.

"If she did, she'll need some help finding the good stuff." Catherine jerked her head toward the hall. "Come on. We'll see if we can't speed this up."

They headed down the hall and Catherine stopped short at the open door of the breakroom. Sara almost plowed into her.

"What's the…"

Catherine put a finger to her lips and put a hand on Sara's arm. "Shh. Look."

Nick was lying on his back on the couch, his head propped on one arm of the sofa, his feet on the other. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in a steady swell. He was obviously sleeping hard. Caroline Brighton was standing next to him, doing nothing, as far as Catherine could tell, but watching Nick. Then she reached for Nick's jacket, which was carelessly flung across the back of the couch, and gently spread it across his shoulders and chest. Her hand wavered over his head, and then she hesitantly touched his hair and stroked it lightly with her fingertips.

"That's awfully forward," Sara whispered.

"No," Catherine said. "That's awfully…tender."

Sara watched, puzzled. "But she just met him two days ago."

Catherine shook her head. "Uh-uh. Warrick said they knew each other in Texas."

"Ah, I missed that." Sara looked on with renewed interest. Dr. Brighton had withdrawn her hand and was once again watching Nick intently. A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away.

"She was in love with him," Sara whispered with dawning realization.

"That would be my guess," Catherine confirmed. "And from the looks of things, I'd say she did a stint at the Heartbreak Hotel."

"That cad," Sara whispered, with mock indignation.

Catherine went into the room and crossed over to Dr. Brighton. The psychologist quickly turned away from Nick, but she didn't meet Catherine's gaze. She brushed her hand across her eyes.

"The air's so dry here," she said. "It makes my eyes sting."

"Yeah, it can do that," Catherine agreed. "So can reuniting with an old lover."

Dr. Brighton blanched and tried to hide it, but Catherine saw, as did Sara, who was drawn into the room by Catherine's boldness. Caroline Brighton looked at them both carefully and attempted to put the appropriate affront into her tone.

"Excuse me?"

Catherine wasn't going to buy into it. "Look, Dr. Brighton…Caroline…"

The psychologist dabbed at her eyes, giving up pretenses. "Carrie. It's Carrie."

Catherine smiled. Now they were getting somewhere. "Carrie. You okay?"

"I'm sorry. He just looks so…tired."

"Well, he's two-thirds of the way into a triple. Believe me," said Sara, "that will do it."

But Carrie just shook her head, unwilling or unable to explain what she meant. She had noticed the change in Nick from the moment she had seen him in the print lab, had seen him watching her. There was something in the way he stood, something in the hollow spaces under his eyes that had never been there before, something in those deep chocolate eyes themselves that had filled her with an overwhelming sense of sadness. She couldn't hold back the tears when she had seen him then, and she couldn't hold them back now.

Catherine handed her a tissue. "When's the last time you saw him?"

Carrie blew her nose, not daintily. "Ten years ago. In Texas."

Sara nodded. "You two were, uh…"

Before she could phrase her question or Carrie could answer it, Warrick came into the room. He nodded to the women, looking a little too long at Carrie and her tear-streaked face, and then went over to Nick. He rapped him sharply on the sole of one of his shoes.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Wakey, wakey. It's almost daylight."

Nick struggled groggily to sit up, and Carrie rushed from the room, her hand wiping away tears. Warrick watched after her and shook his head. That was the second time he had seen her do that. Nick sure did have an effect on the women. Sara and Catherine followed her out, ready to lend comfort, more than ready to hear her story of her heartbreaking love affair with Nick Stokes.

Warrick held his hand out to Nick and pulled him to his feet. "Come on, partner. Let's go find that damn cat."


	5. Chapter 5

"Barrel racing." Nick broke the silence in the SUV.

Warrick glanced over at him, a puzzled expression on his face. "Come again?"

"Barrel racing. That's how I met her. You asked."

"Yeah. I asked two days ago. A conversation with you can take a week." But he was sorry as soon as he said it, as soon as he saw Nick look out the window again and retreat back into silence.

"Sorry, bud. I really do want to know. So, barrel racing. You were barrel racing? How the hell do you race a barrel?"

Nick looked at him incredulously. "Jeez, man, Nevada's in the west. How do you not know what barrel racing is? No, I wasn't barrel racing. She was. Guys don't barrel race. The girls race horses, ride 'em around barrels. But not against other riders. Just the course."

"Give me a break here, Nick. Yeah, Nevada's in the west but Vegas isn't a western town. The last time I saw a horse was when I took Tina to see the jousting show at the Excalibur."

Nick shrugged, but had to wonder, as he often did, at how small the world was for his Vegas-born friend. "Whatever. She was barrel racing and that's when I first saw her."

"Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. So you were hanging out at the barrel racing…track?…and you look up, and there she is. Astride her no-doubt magnificent barrel racing steed…"

"Cutter pony," Nick broke in. "She had a cutter pony. And yeah, it was a good horse. Smart, sure on its feet. Cutter horses work best for the barrel races because they're used to…"

"This is fascinating, Nick," Warrick jibed, prompting him to move on and determined not to ask his cowboy friend what a cutter horse was. He hoped it wasn't as painful as it sounded.

"I thought you were interested." Nick feigned a hurt expression.

"I am. In her. Not her horse."

Nick gave an exasperated sigh. "Shall I continue?" he asked formally.

"By all means." Warrick waved his hands magnanimously, then quickly placed them back on the wheel as the vehicle swerved slightly and Nick gave him a pointed look.

"It was the beginning of my senior year at A&M," Nick said. "Early fall. Fair days."

"Yeah? The weather nice in Texas in the fall?"

Nick looked at his partner quizzically, trying to decide if he was serious. And then with a pang of pity realized he was.

"Not that kind of fair, you idiot. The state fair. In the fall. Fair days."

"Oh." Warrick decided he would just shut up from here on in, before he truly earned the label Nick had just bestowed upon him.

"So," Nick continued, "I grabbed a buddy and took him home to the ranch for the weekend. My oldest niece was barrel racing, so it gave us an excuse to head over there. Gave us a chance to watch the older girls race after my niece was done in her division."

Warrick nodded his approval, picturing Nick leaning over a rail, a piece, a…blade?…of straw jutting out from the corner of his mouth, checking out the barrel racing girls with his booted, bucktoothed buddy.

"Anything special about barrel racing girls?" Warrick asked, already forgetting his vow to remain silent.

Nick laughed. "Oh, hell, yeah. They all had a certain look about 'em. Long legs, long hair. Blue jeans belted at the hips, not the waist. And tight shirts with those little pearly buttons that none of them ever buttoned up all the way. And they tended to be tall and slim. Willowy."

"Willowy?"

"You know, tall and…"

"Slim."

"Right."

"I'm digging it. Barrel racing girls."

"So when Becky, that's my niece, was done…she won, by the way…"

"Picture that."

"So when Becky was done we watched the older girls. We hit on a few after they were finished, not expecting much but had fun trying. Then…and then it was her turn. The last rider. She was…well, that's when I saw her. Saw…Carrie."

His voice caught on the name and Warrick noticed it, but he kept his eyes on the road, afraid if Nick saw him looking at him now he'd clam up for sure. But he clammed up anyway, looked out the window again, and Warrick decided that was all he was going to get out of him.

Her shirt was blue, Nick remembered. Two shades of blue, one a sort of light sky, the other darker, but not royal or navy. They were mixed together in the requisite plaid of the cowgirl shirt, and silver threads ran through each time the two colors merged. There were flat mother-of-pearl buttons on the cuffs and down the center, nine of them, the top three left undone. He could still feel the blush on his face when he caught himself counting them. She wore the shirt tight, the way all the girls did, tucked into jeans that were low slung around narrow hips and belted with a brown leather belt, held on with a buckle he knew she had won somewhere, some fair or rodeo. But he couldn't quite make out what it was, and he knew a blush had crept up on his cheeks again when he tried to lean over the rail and look at it.

She was long waisted and sat tall on her horse, her back straight and shoulders squared. Her hair was dust-colored, the color of the earth at his feet. Not brown, but paler, like the dust that swirled under the anticipating hooves of her horse. It was long, but hard to tell how long. She wore it in a ponytail below a suede, cream-colored Stetson show hat, immaculately clean. She had an open, friendly face with a small, straight nose that was fetchingly sprinkled with pale freckles. Her lips were prettily curved and if she had a flaw it was that her eyes were framed by too-pale lashes and brows that she hadn't tried to darken with mascara or liner. The eyes were…shoot…too far away to tell. Hazel maybe. Or brown or even blue. That would go with her hair and complexion. Her skin was fair, but lightly tanned, he knew, because when she bent over the reins of her horse he could see a flash of pale skin, a hint of the swell of her breasts, the alabaster contrasting with the darker skin of her long neck. The three undone buttons served their intended purpose, and he was blushing again.

He moved away from his friend and Becky, who was in his care, and felt like a junior high kid. He told himself to get a grip and willed the heat and color to fade from his face. But he never stopped watching her. He could tell by the way she sat her horse that she would be a good rider, and she was. She moved with her horse, not on him, with a grace and skill that were truly admirable. She maneuvered him close and low to the barrels, tight around the curves and fast between them. Her ponytail whipped behind her, and as she rounded the last barrel, her hat flew off, sailed in the air. And landed at his feet. By the time they had posted her marks and announced her the winner of the division, he knew he had himself a barrel racing girl.

"I had her hat," Nick said.

Warrick turned. The conversational lull had only been ten minutes this time, not two days, so it was a little easier to follow.

"You took it?"

"Nah. It fell off when she was racing. I gave it back to her and that's how we met."

"And then she fell victim to your charms and you got lucky enough to go out with her."

"Yeah. Something like that. She was from Fort Worth, but turns out she went to A&M, too, a psych major. She was just starting her sophomore year. She was nineteen. She was so young, man. "

"So were you," Warrick pointed out.

"I guess," Nick said, and Warrick focused on the road again when he heard the sadness, or maybe regret, in his friend's voice.

He had just turned twenty-two the previous month, Nick remembered. How long ago was that? Jesus, had he ever been twenty-two? He felt like he had lived a lifetime since then. How could it seem so very long ago when at the same time he could remember the sparkly threads in her shirt and the way her eyes danced, hazel, when they called her name over the loudspeaker and presented her buckle? He could see the shirt and buckle both so clearly he wanted to reach out and grasp them in his fist. He felt his eyes water, and he squeezed them shut, leaning his head against the cool glass of the side window.

Warrick wasn't willing to let it go, not yet. "Were you together long?"

Nick took a minute to answer, wanted to make sure there would be no tremor in his voice for Warrick to question.

"Three years. That one and two more."

Warrick drew in his breath. That wasn't the answer he was expecting. He had this pegged as a college fling. Like the ones he had had, the ones most the guys he knew in college had had. One of those intense, but short, relationships that caused heartbreak when the girl moved on, and it was always the girl, but one you got over when the next girl came along.

"Lived together for most of the last two."

And he sure as hell wasn't expecting that. He had known Nick for going on eight years now, and Nick had never once mentioned her. He gave a low whistle. "You _lived_ with a woman for two years?"

Nick shrugged, put all the energy he had into keeping his voice casual. "No big deal. When I graduated she transferred to UTD. We got a place together in Dallas. It was easy. We were easy. We were best friends. We were good together. It worked for us."

Warrick was silent, considering. He thought of his own relationship with Tina. They had only known each other for three months before he married her, and Nick had been in a relationship for three years. He said it had been easy, and Warrick could tell he meant it. He envied him that, for a minute. Nothing about his relationship with Tina was "easy." And were they "good" together? He had never thought to describe it that way, but Nick had said it so naturally, so simply. He chanced a glance at Nick and saw the pain flicker in his eyes, the pain he didn't mask because he didn't think Warrick was watching. Warrick's jealously disappeared.

Warrick didn't want to ask, but he had to ask. Had to know. The relationship had ended badly and Nick had fallen hard, that much he could tell. Hell, that much he knew after witnessing Nick's reaction when his friend saw Caroline Brighton that first time in the print lab. And she hadn't come out of the relationship unscathed, either, he thought, remembering her tears and her hasty retreat from that room and from the breakroom not long ago. And a three-year commitment? That explained a lot. The intricate dance that Nick and the psychologist did around each other, the careful way they chose their words, the way they avoided touch, especially Nick. But he had to ask the question.

"What happened?"

Nick raised his head. "Happened?"

"Well, something must have happened. I mean, it ended." He shifted uneasily. "You're not together now," he added uselessly.

Nick's look was close to withering, his voice bitter. "That much is obvious, Warrick."

They didn't speak again until Warrick pulled in front of the picnic tables and parked next to a patrol car.

It was cold in the early dawn and the officer assigned to stand watch over the two CSIs was not amused. He pulled the collar of his black jacket higher onto his neck and blew into his hands as he waited for Nick and Warrick to retrieve a kit and camera from their SUV.

"You two really think you're going to find anything at a scene that was released almost forty-eight hours ago?" he asked, directing his attention to Warrick.

"Don't know 'til we look," Warrick said. "All you have to do is stand watch and look for anyone who seems unusually interested in us. Someone who doesn't look like he's out for an early morning jog." He looked harshly at the blond officer. "You do remember how to stand watch, don't you, Michaels?"

The officer glanced quickly at Nick and then at the ground. Warrick gave him one more hard stare, then walked to the jogging trail with Nick.

"You know you ride him every time you see him," Nick said. "You got to let it go, man. I have."

Warrick doubted that was true. Nick had never returned any of the calls Officer Michaels had made to him after Nick's "incident" last May, and even now when Nick and D.A. Michaels crossed paths, Nick never initiated conversation and spoke in only curt, clipped tones. But if Nick wanted to say he was cool with the guy, Warrick wasn't going to argue with him. That didn't mean he had to pretend he was, though, when he ran across the hapless cop.

Joggers were creatures of habit, and they hoped by coming out here, at the same time the victim had been found, that they would get a sense of who was out and about that morning two days ago. They had planned on doing it yesterday at this time, but the other cases of the shift had kept them occupied. There was no expectation that the killer would return to this scene, but it gave them something to tell the officer on watch, and neither Brass nor Grissom would let them go out on anything related to this case without a uniform attached to them. Their real motivation was to look for a large, yellow dog and its owner. If they were out here two mornings ago, chances were they would be out here again.

They hung out on the side of the trail and watched. The first jogger to pass them, as expected, was the man who had called in the body. He had said he was usually the first one out on the trail and he was right. It was another fifteen minutes before another runner came past, another man in his twenties. He was followed by a middle-aged pair of women powerwalkers. And coming up on their heels at a quick trot were a young woman and a yellow Labrador retriever.

"You're the morning runner," Warrick said to Nick, as he watched the pair overtake the walkers. "Go get 'em."

Nick scowled at him, but he took off down the trail. He called out to the woman, but she was using her iPod and took no notice. Nick was left with no choice but to catch up to her, and she was really zipping. He worked hard to keep himself in shape, and he was pretty proud of it. But now he was in the midst of a reality check. He used to run that way, too, long effortless strides, going so fast the tree trunks were nothing but blurs as he sped by. Ten years ago. Not anymore. And sleep deprivation wasn't doing much to contribute to his energy reserves. By the time he caught up with her he was winded. Jogging alongside her, he pointed to the LVPD insignia on his jacket. The woman stopped and stepped off the trail with Nick, the dog at her side. She was in her early twenties and was barely even breathing hard. Nick shook his head ruefully, for a moment flashing back to his days as a college athlete, one of the fittest players on the baseball team, and for the second time that day wondered if he had ever really been that young. He fought to catch his breath.

"Nick Stokes, criminalistics," Nick managed, when the girl had removed her earpieces. "I have some questions to ask you about an incident in this park a few days ago, if you don't mind waiting for my partner." He nodded toward Warrick, who was taking his time sauntering down the trail with his long-legged lope. Officer Michaels followed him. It gave Nick a chance to catch his breath, but he was still breathing a little harder than he would have liked when Warrick strolled up beside him and grinned. Nick made a face at him and turned back to the woman.

"Miss…"

"Kim McNeil," the woman interrupted. "It's Kim."

Nick smiled at her, all Texas charm, and Warrick grinned at him again. Nick pretended not to notice.

"Kim, were you and your dog here in the park on Monday morning?"

"Yes. We're here almost every morning."

"Same time as this?" Nick asked.

Kim shook her head. "Earlier on the days I use the exercise stations. If you wait too long, it's hard to get to them."

"The exercise stations?" Warrick asked, puzzled. He kept himself in shape, too, but he used the gym and a trainer and didn't much frequent the parks.

Kim pointed to the opposite side of the park. "You know, you stop at each sign and do the exercise it tells you to."

"And that's where you were Monday morning?" Nick asked.

Kim nodded.

"Was your dog with you?"

There was hesitation this time, and Nick tried again. "Look, Kim, this is really important. A young woman, about your age, was found dead in the park Monday morning. We have a report that a yellow dog was seen near the body. You were in the park then. Even if you were on the other side, you must have noticed the commotion over here after the body was reported."

"I left shortly after I got here."

Warrick looked at her carefully. "You left before you did the stations? Why?"

Kim looked nervously at Officer Michaels and then at the dog. "Gage took off on his own. I decided I'd better take him home."

Officer Michaels reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out his citation pad. "Ma'am, all dogs in this park must be leashed. You just admitted your dog was off-leash Monday, and he's definitely off-leash now. I'm going to write a citation."

Nick held up his hand. "Now, officer, I'm sure that's not necessary. Miss McNeil, maybe if you could assure Officer Michaels that the next time you're in the park, you'll keep Gage here on a leash, he'll let you off with just a warning."

The cop looked at Nick and then reluctantly put the pad back into his jacket. If Nick Stokes asked him for a favor, he sure as hell wasn't in any kind of position to turn him down. But he still made an attempt to exert his authority.

"Just make sure it doesn't happen again," he said sternly.

"It won't," Kim assured him, and she looked at Nick gratefully. Nick smiled disarmingly at her.

"Kim, now, we need the truth here," he drawled. "Tell us why you took Gage home."

"He was carrying a cat in his mouth when he came back to me," Kim said. "I wanted to take it home."

Nick and Warrick exchanged quick glances. They had found the missing cat.

"Was it alive?" Nick asked.

"No. It was dead. I wanted to take it home and bury it."

"Because you felt responsible for it, because Gage had killed it?" Warrick asked.

Kim shook her head adamantly. "No. He found it, but he didn't kill it. I wanted to take it home and bury it because I felt sorry for it; I didn't want to just dump it in a trashcan. Someone had abused it."

"How did you know that?" asked Nick.

Kim shuddered at the memory. "It had a cord wrapped around its neck. I think someone had strangled it."

Simultaneously, the two CSIs blew out their breaths. White puffs hung suspended in the cold morning air and then dissipated. That "someone" was a serial killer who now had fourteen confirmed kills behind him and was at large in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"Did you tell anyone about the cat?" Warrick asked. Carrie said the cats had never been part of information released by the media, and he hoped to keep it that way. For reasons he could never understand, the public could accept, sometimes too easily, the abuse of their fellow man, but when it came to the abuse of animals, they tended to get into an uproar. It was crazily tilted, but it had been that way ever since he could remember. Homeless teens lived under the overpasses, but good Samaritans took the stray cats and dogs to the shelters and even their homes.

"No. I just took it home and buried it in the back yard."

"It would be best if you didn't tell anyone about it or that you've talked to us," Nick said. "We need the cat as part of our investigation. Kim, would it be okay with you if we went onto your property and retrieved it?"

"Retrieved it?"

Nick shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. We, uh, need to dig it up and take it back with us."

"I…I guess that would be okay." The conversation with the two crime scene investigators was getting stranger by the minute, and she was suddenly ready to be done with them. The impact of what she had been hearing was beginning to hit her. A girl her age had been found dead on the trail in her park, and a strangled cat, that was now in her back yard, had something to do with it. She pointed to a small tan house across the street.

"That's mine. If you want to get your car, or whatever, I'll meet you there."

Before they could reply, she launched herself into her effortless run and was back on the trail, aiming for the edge of the park, the yellow dog Gage trotting beside her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:** This chapter is mostly flashback, and most of it takes place in the bedroom. So, sexual content ahead. Please remember that this piece is rated 'M' and proceed accordingly. On another note, this chapter and a few others make reference to Nick's stint as a cop on the Dallas force. There is some argument, rightfully so, about whether or not this is canon since it appears in the character's bio but no reference has actually been made to it in an episode. I'm strictly a canon girl myself, but the cop thing works for what I need it to do here, and I rather like picturing Nick in his police uniform as a young man in his twenties. So there it is.

* * *

The cat was a delicate-boned female with long gray fur that even now they could tell had been attentively groomed. Nick and Warrick had taken it back to the lab in triumph, even though they knew that they were effectively announcing the indisputable fact that there was a serial killer in their midst. But it had been good investigative work, and they always felt a sense of accomplishment when they found that key piece of evidence that turned the theory into fact. Carrie confirmed that the cord around its neck was knotted the same as the others. Doc Robbins sent a blood screen to tox and said that he would perform a necropsy to ascertain if the cat was alive when the cord was wrapped around its neck.

Nick and Warrick hadn't hung around for the results. They knew what they would be, and they were exhausted. They had been at this since 8:30 Monday night, and it was now almost 8:30 on Wednesday morning. When he got home, Nick headed straight for his couch, sinking into it and leaning his head wearily against the cushioned back. He had left this house thirty-six hours ago, and he hadn't slept before he had left. He had been thinking of Carrie, thinking of how he was going to greet her, how he was going to react to her, and it had prevented sleep. That seemed a long time ago now, as did his reunion with her. He remembered the rush of desire he felt for her when he first saw her, the longing to touch her hair, the ache he felt when he held himself back, the tears that had fallen from those expressive hazel eyes when she looked at him.

"Carrie." He said the name aloud, though he had not realized it. He didn't have evidence collection or lab tests or interviews to distract him now, to keep him at a safe distance. Flickers of memory, scenes from their last night together, from the path that had led him to where he was now, tugged at him. He had known since his conversation with Warrick on the way to the park, since he had seen the little pearly buttons on the blue plaid of her shirt, that he wasn't going to fight them anymore. The memories washed over him in waves, and he let them, didn't have the strength to stave them off. It wouldn't have mattered if he had; he couldn't have stopped them anyway.

He and Carrie had just made love. No, he corrected. Had sex. Bone jarring, mind numbing, loud sex that filled the room with shouted demands and pleas and obscenities. That had their bucking bodies slick and glistening with the sweat of their efforts, that had the headboard of the bed beating a steady tattoo against the wall. That had, Nick thought now, the poor guy on the other side of the duplex either cursing them or jerking off.

Nick used to feel a little guilty about him. He was a graduate student, small and brown and studious-looking. From India or Pakistan or something. And he probably wished for different neighbors on the other side. Nick and Carrie not only had sex frequently, they sometimes had it, well, loudly. Carrie was a fearless and creative partner, and Nick did his best to keep up with her. Eventually he realized his twinges of guilt weren't about to cause him to rein himself in, so he gave up worrying about it. Instead, he took a perverse pleasure in greeting the shy man, the mornings after he and Carrie had been especially animated. He would wait until he heard the door to the other side open and shut, and he would go out, in the guise of picking up the morning paper from the stoop. Dressed in his cop's uniform. He would wave a cheery hello, looking the guy straight in the eye as he drawled, "Hey, man. How's it goin'?" Always, the other man looked away, painfully, Nick thought, and mumbled a hurried response as he practically ran down the walk. Come to think of it, Nick couldn't remember the bashful man ever looking him in the eye. And now he did feel guilty, just a little. It probably wasn't fair. The juxtaposition of the police uniform against the feral sounds that had emanated through the walls in the dark.

But he wasn't thinking of the other tenant that night. He had collapsed, panting, on top of Carrie, his ears pounding, his breath coming so fast he was sure he was going to hyperventilate if he didn't manage to get it under control. Christ, if they were going to have any more sessions like this, or even close to this, he was going to have to step up his workout routine. Or she just might kill him. But she wasn't faring much better, he noted. Her breath was forced out in ragged gasps and her body still quivered beneath him.

Carrie moved restlessly under him, hands still fisted against his back, her breathing not slowing down. She pressed her mouth against his chest and moaned. "Shit."

"Hold on," he said to her. "I got it."

He was flaccid and spent inside of her, but he didn't withdraw. He brought his mouth down to her breast, lips and tongue and teeth commanding her to release. His fingers kneaded her belly and then he moved a hand lower and rubbed hard against her. She came fast, as he'd known she would. Her body jerked hard and quick and she dug fingers in his back and shouted out. He held her while she rode it out, enjoying the erotic sensation of her body rhythmically molding and releasing around him, regretting that his participation was over for this moment. Finally she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"God. God, Nick," she managed. "Jesus. I think we set a new record."

He propped himself on an elbow and smiled at her. "Yeah? How many?"

"Counting the results of that sneak attack you did to me before I could even get my clothes off?"

He grinned. "Yep. Counting that. And, uh, sorry. I'm still perfecting that one."

She reached for his hand, linked fingers with his. "I think you have it down good enough. All hands, Nick. Damn octopus."

"Yeah, yeah. Now give. How many?"

She shook her head. "You'd be intimidated. Too much pressure to do it again."

He stroked his thumb over hers. "How can I beat the record if I don't know the score?"

She tilted her head up and brushed his lips with hers. Kissed him playfully. "You should know the score, baby. Pay attention."

"I was paying attention," he said defensively. "Mostly. Well, up to a point. And then it got…confusing."

His heart was still beating way too fast and she pressed her free hand against the beat. He knew his face was flushed, and he could feel the sweat drying on his body.

"I bet it did."

He smiled down at her. Actually, he did know the score, or close enough to it, he figured. And she was right; it was a little intimidating. If she expected him to get her there one more time than _that_, he would seriously have to change up his workout routine. Less weight training, more endurance training. There were less motivating reasons to stay in shape.

He was still light-headed, and his body felt hollowed out, weightless. He closed his eyes and let himself float.

"Nick?"

"Hmmm?"

"Don't go to sleep, baby. You're still inside me."

He wasn't ready to pull away from her, to break the connection. "Gonna stay there. Gonna do it again."

She laughed skeptically. "I don't think so, Superman."

"Well, not like _that_," he admitted. "You gotta give me recovery time before I try that again. A few months should do it."

"Not funny. Two days, tops."

He nuzzled her neck, breathed in the scent of her hair. His need to stay with her was strong, overriding sound judgment.

"I'm not ready to let you go," he said honestly. "Just give me some, uh, encouragement."

She shook her head, but reached her hands around his back. "Okay, stud. Roll over. I'll do my best."

"That's my girl." But before he let her straddle him, he warned, "Don't put me in the hospital, darlin'." And he wasn't joking. "Slow this time, Carrie. And gentle."

"I promise."

She was true to her word. Her lips were light, fluttering, like a bird's wings, he had thought, as they skittered over his face, his neck, his shoulders, his chest. Her hands caressed, softly, tenderly. He could feel her love for him in her fingertips. He let himself trust her, surrender to her, be taken by her, arms above his head, not touching her. His body responded to her touch and he awakened within her, but slowly, a growing heat that spread into his belly. He relished the sensation of it, like being lowered into warm water. His hands ached to touch her, and he reached to stroke her body, her skin still warm and slick from their earlier lovemaking. He brought her down to him and rolled over, his body on hers as he sank deeper into her. He began to move in her. Long, slow lunges, in no hurry, savoring.

He brought his mouth to hers, tasting her, lingering there, drinking her in. He found the line of her jaw, and he caressed it with his lips. She tipped her head back and exposed her neck to him, and he covered the hollow of her throat, feeling her pulse beating beneath his lips. He focused on it, pinpointing his concentration to listening to her breaths, feeling her pulse under his mouth, trying to match his breathing to it. He put a hand between her breasts, spread his fingers, intent on feeling the beat of her heart, engrossed on matching the beat of his own heart to hers, and then finally on matching his thrusts to their breaths, their heartbeats. He smiled in triumph when he accomplished it, when he knew he was completely in synch with her.

A wave of longing crashed over him. Intense, urgent, consuming. Longing and need to be closer to her still, to lose himself in her. It took him by surprise and he lost his attention on the pleasant game he had been playing. All he knew was that he wanted to be surrounded by her, filled with her. The need to melt himself into her, his aching need for her, _her_, was so powerful it overwhelmed him. He felt anxiety akin to despair that he wouldn't be able to get to her, to fill his need. He burrowed into her, his face in her hair, breathing her in like air. He tried to bury himself deeper inside of her, couldn't. A sob that he didn't know would be there and that he didn't understand wrenched from his throat.

"Carrie…"

"It's okay. You're okay."

"I can't…I can't get close enough."

"Shh. Yes, you can, baby. You are. I'm right here. Let it go now. Let it happen. You have me. You have me, baby."

He had to know it. "Say my name. Tell me you love me."

She whispered against him, her breath brushing his cheek. "Nick. Nick. I love you. I love you, Nick. Nick."

She said the name like a mantra, said it even as she rose beneath him. He caught her up, could feel the spasms of the waves rocking her body against him. He let them wash over him, undulating, lapping. His body moved to the rhythm of them, of her, and he was engulfed by the waves. He crested them and emptied into her, emptied into her to the roll of the waves, to the sound of her breathing his name.

He gathered her in his arms.

"I love you, Carrie. You're all there is." He covered her mouth with his and kissed her, long and deep. Everything that he had for her was in that kiss—tenderness and passion, need and fulfillment. He tasted tears and didn't know if they were hers or his.

"Marry me, Carrie," he murmured. "Marry me and be my wife." The words tumbled out of him without intention or design, but they felt right, and true, and he didn't try to stop them. "After you graduate in the spring, marry me."

She put a finger to his lips, stopping him. "Oh, Nick. Don't ask me that right now."

He pulled back from her and saw the tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. He knew he should let it go, but after he had said the words, he knew he had to have her answer, knew he would not relent until he had it. The obstinacy made him feel reckless, unsafe, but he pursued it anyway. "Why not now?"

She touched his face. "Because the way you make me feel right now, lying here with you, your arms around me, I think I'd tell you anything. I'd give you anything."

He had latched on to it, and he couldn't let it go now. He kissed her, urgent and demanding. "Give me this, Carrie. Marry me. It's right for us. You know it is."

She looked at him, her eyes searching his. "I feel like I'm holding your heart in my hands, Nick, and I want to be careful with it."

She moved away from him, got up and slipped into her panties and one of his faded workout tees that she wore to lounge around in. She sat on the edge of the bed and held out a pair of boxers to him. He felt the edges of panic, sharp and dangerous, but he got up, put on the boxers, and sat down next to her.

She turned to him and touched his hair, stroked it. "I can't marry you now, baby."

"I know. It's too much with your classes and trying to graduate. I don't mean now. We'll do it the spring, after graduation. Or in the summer if you want. June wedding. Girls are supposed to like those."

She shook her head. "No, Nick. Not in June, either."

The growing panic was like a vice now, and he could feel it gripping his chest. He battled to ward it off. "Are you…are you…telling me you won't marry me?"

She looked away from him. "I just…I don't know. I'm not telling you anything except it can't be now. Not this year, not even next. And not…not the one after that."

He was reeling. The room spun dizzily around him and he braced his hands on the edge of the mattress, desperately trying to regain his balance.

"I don't understand what's happening," he said. But not to her.

He had always known that he would marry her. Had known since the day he held that cream-colored hat in his hands and had grinned at her when he presented it to her. Had known every day since then. They didn't talk about it, he had thought, because they just…_knew_. Everyone did. Her family, his, their friends. All the people who knew them and saw how they were together and what they were to each other, all the people who stopped thinking of him as Nick and her as Carrie, who by the second year of their relationship simply thought of them as NickandCarrie.

He hadn't planned to ask her like he had, naked and vulnerable in bed, overwhelmed with his aching need for her, his emotions raw and exposed. He was going to ask her after her graduation, knowing that she was putting almost all of her focus into finishing up and graduating with honors, and he didn't want her distracted from that by thinking of wedding plans. He was going to ask her properly, with a ring. It hadn't happened that way, but it shouldn't have mattered. He was going to ask her. And she must have known that.

"You knew I was going to ask you."

"I knew. I've always known."

That confirmation was no victory. He felt his face grow hot, his pulse pound. Anger was rising fast, replacing the dizzying panic, and he didn't try to tamp it down. "If you knew, _knew _where I wanted this to go, _knew_ that you would tell me no, why the hell did you let this go on so damn long? Why did you move in with me? Jesus, that was even your idea."

He reared up and punched his fist against the wall. "Fuck! Fuck this! You jerked me around and I let you. Just five minutes ago you said you loved me. Did you mean it, or is that just something you say to me when you need me to get off on you?"

He didn't even wince when she slapped him across the face. He had known it was coming.

"Don't be a bastard. I say that to you all the time, and you know it. Every morning, every night, every goddamn time we talk on the phone, in the notes in your fucking lunch sack." Her eyes were blazing. "And don't tell me I don't mean it. You know I do."

He did know it, had never doubted it, even as he was lashing out at her. He struggled for composure. "I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"Hurting. And it feels better to be pissed."

She grabbed his hand and tugged at it, her eyes pleading with him not to fight her on it.

He didn't. He allowed her to lead him back to the edge of the bed.

She sought his eyes, held them. "I need you to listen to me. More than that, I need you to believe me and not question it. I know that's hard to do right now, but please try. Please, Nick."

He nodded, but couldn't bring himself to speak.

"I do love you. That's why I wanted to change schools and get a place with you. I couldn't stand the thought of only seeing you on weekends. I wanted to wake up in the mornings and have you there next to me. And if you don't believe anything else, believe this: I never wanted to hurt you. I always knew what you wanted, and I wanted it too. Dreamed about it. The wedding, the dress. Our life, having a baby with you. I wanted it."

"And now you don't?"

Her tears were streaming. "I do. More than I've ever wanted anything. But that's the problem, Nick. I don't know what 'anything' is."

He looked at her, confusion and anger swirling together. "What the fuck does that mean?"

She rubbed the heel of her hand against her face, wiping the tears. "Do you like your job?"

He was having a hard enough time focusing, and she wasn't helping. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"Just tell me."

"Yeah, I like it well enough."

" 'Well enough.' But you talk all the time about how you don't get to help the victims as much as you want to, how your role as a patrol cop is too confining. You're not…passionate…about it. It doesn't fulfill you."

"I don't need it to."

"Why not?"

He knew what she wanted him to say, knew he couldn't deny it. "Because you do."

"And you do me. I'm madly, ridiculously, in love with you, Nick. I'm incredibly happy when I'm with you and incredibly miserable when I'm not."

"But?"

"But it scares me sometimes. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid I'll get so caught up in it that I won't be all that I'm supposed to be, that I won't _know_ what I'm supposed to be, that I'll settle for good enough, like you're doing, because it won't matter. And I want it _all_ to matter."

He watched her cautiously as she struggled with her words. "I'm twenty-two years old. I've barely been out of Texas. I want to go to graduate school, maybe even get a Ph.D. It's going to be hard work, and I want to put everything I have into it. I don't want to be married. Not now, not yet."

He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice. "You never talked about graduate school. You said you were taking the job at that clinic after you graduate."

"I know. I was going to. But the closer I come to it, the more I know it's not the right decision. I can't get very far in my field without an advanced degree, and…"

"But you've always known that. Why weren't you thinking about this earlier, talking to me about it?"

"I wasn't keeping it from you, and that's the truth, Nick. I knew I should go to grad school, but I convinced myself it didn't matter. I didn't talk to you about it because I wasn't going to go. I didn't want…didn't want to leave you." Her tears began again. "And leaving you is going to be the hardest thing I ever do in my life."

He could see the pain the decision was costing her, knew she must have battled with it hard. Wanting him, wanting to explore what she could become without him. But he couldn't offer comfort to ease the pain. He was submerged in his own.

"You don't want me to come with you," he said hollowly.

She took his hand, the one he had fisted into the wall, and brought it to her lips. She brushed her kiss across the swollen knuckles, and he could feel her tears wetting the abused skin. "Yeah, baby, I want you to come with me. But I don't think it would be the best thing for me right now, and I'm not even sure it would be the best thing for you."

It was all crashing down around him and he didn't know how to stop it. He was desperate to hold on. "Things can be the same until you leave for school."

She shook her head. "No. I know you. You get hold of something and you won't let it go. If I stay, you'll ask me again, or you'll ask to come with me, and I can't do this again."

He denied it. "I won't. I won't bring it up again."

"Come on, Nick. You will and you know it. You'll ask and I'll tell you again why I love you but can't marry you, and we'll be right back to this place again."

"I'll wait for you," he said, and meant it.

Her voice was stern, both command and warning. "Don't. I don't know when I'll be ready. I can't promise I'll marry you after grad school. I can't promise I'll be ready, and you can't put your life on hold and wait for two years without a promise. But more than that, I can't…I can't put what I need into figuring out how to do this without you if I'm thinking all the time of you expecting me to come back to you. I love you, Nick, and I'll always love you, but I need…"

"More," he finished for her. And there was the truth of it. For him, what they had together was all there was; for her, it wasn't enough.


	7. Chapter 7

He got dressed and left, more to save wounded pride than anything else, afraid if he stayed he'd be begging. He walked in the cold January night, the taste of her mouth still lingering on his lips, the sting of her slap still outlined on his cheek. He wasn't sure where he was going, not sure he really wanted to go anywhere but back to her. A part of him was sure she would change her mind, was certain her love for him, and his for her, would drive her to say the words he was so desperate to hear.

But when he got back, she was gone. The bedroom still smelled of sex, of her, of them, and it was all he could do to stay in it long enough to look in the closet. Some of her clothes were gone and he knew she wasn't coming back.

He left then, this time with purpose. He drove unerringly to his mother. Told her brokenly he no longer had Carrie and sobbed in her arms like he had when he was eight, when his black lab Sam that he had known all his life and that he loved with fierce intensity, was hit by a car and died. Cried like he had then, with shoulders heaving and breath hitching and tears streaming, with hands clutching her back. As she had then, his mother cooed to him and petted him, rubbed his back until the jagged edges of the sobs smoothed out and finally subsided.

He spent the night at his folks'. He was played out, physically and emotionally, and he slept hard. He didn't hear his parents begin their day or leave the house, didn't hear anything until he finally woke at noon. He didn't get up, his body aching, heavy and uncooperative, the beginnings of a headache stabbing at his temples. So he stayed in the bed, didn't know what else to do anyway, wasn't scheduled on the roster at the station, and didn't frankly see any reason to struggle with putting effort into moving. He was pretty sure he would have lain there all day, cocooned in the bed of his childhood, but his brother had shown up and told him he was taking him home with him.

It had been shrewd instincts on his mother's part, he thought later, to call in Will. Will was fourteen years older and on track to becoming a career cop, a detective in vice gunning for head of the division. William Stokes, Jr., was aptly named, Nick had always thought. He was very much his father's son—tough but fair, respectful and commanding of respect. He had a strong sense of family loyalty and duty, and right then, Nick knew, his assigned duty was to keep his little brother from self-destructing.

He spent two weeks with Will. Two weeks in which he wallowed in miring self-pity and Will practiced tough love. In the mornings Will would enter the guestroom and demand that Nick haul his sorry ass out of bed before he did it for him, and Nick would mumble savagely at him to go fuck himself. But he always got up, managed to shower and shave and dress, get ready for work. Let Janet, his sister-in-law, force food on him, let his two nieces attempt to cheer him up. The oldest, Becky, was fifteen, and he suspected she was finding his broken heart tragically romantic and fascinating.

What it was, he had thought, was pathetic. He knew he was moping around like the rejected lover in one of Becky's romance novels, barely attempting the required motions of getting through a day. But the grief was so strong that it weighed him down, made him listless and sapped of energy. He couldn't figure out how to crawl out from under it, wasn't even sure he wanted to. He went through that first week with such an oppressive heaviness in his body and soul that he thought he would sink from the leaden burden of it, that it would drive him to his knees.

It almost did. Would have, he was sure, if Will and Janet hadn't kept him afloat. He gave Janet his key to the duplex and she picked up clothes and toiletries for him, brought him his mail every few days. He knew it was an imposition on her, but he just couldn't bring himself to go back there. He tried, mid-week, but ended up just sitting in the drive in his patrol car, the sadness shattering over him, piercing through him like shards of glass.

Carrie had called his parents and knew where he was. She called him at Will's, three or four times a day for six days, begging to talk to him, pleading to be told that he was okay. But he never answered when it rang, and when one of the girls or Janet answered it, they could do nothing but tell her that he wouldn't talk to her yet.

Will was less patient. It wasn't his designated role in the family to answer the phone, but by the end of the week he had had enough. He told his wife and daughters that the next time Carrie was on the phone, he wanted it handed over to him. Becky answered and she dutifully gave the phone to her dad. Will told Carrie to hang on a minute and held out the phone to Nick. He just looked at it and shook his head stubbornly.

"Take the fucking phone, Nick, and talk to the girl, before I bash it over your goddamn head."

So he talked to her, one last time. She was staying at a friend's apartment, thought she'd stay there and help with the rent until after graduation, until she knew which graduate program she could get into. She was applying to several, none of them in Texas. They talked about the lease on the duplex, how to split up their stuff, how to pay the bills. Cautious, safe conversation, and they almost made it through. Until he fucked it up.

Because he knew he couldn't live his life without her, because he didn't even know how to try, because already there was a chasm so wide and deep he was going to spiral down into it, he begged her. Told her he didn't need to marry her, it didn't matter as much to him as he led her to believe it did. Told her they could go back to the way things were until she graduated, even if she left after that. He'd take that. Three more months, three more hours. He'd take anything. Told her he'd follow her wherever she went, it didn't matter. He could get on a police force anywhere. And if he couldn't, it wasn't important. He'd flip burgers. Promised he wouldn't hold her back, get in her way.

Told her he'd try not to love her so much.

But he heard no response, just her crying, sobbing, on the other end of the line. Finally she told him what she always did before she ended a call. "I love you, baby." And hung up.

He stayed one more week with Will and Janet, and then when Will was satisfied he could get himself up and going each day, and Janet determined that he wouldn't starve himself to death, he was deemed ready to fly solo. Will helped him find an apartment. Janet and his mother spared him having to go back to the duplex by offering to box up his things and clean up. Some guys from the force moved him into the new place. He knew it all happened, but he didn't remember details of that week, just blurs of activity swirling around him, him watching impassively from the sidelines, not interested in the details of his new life without Carrie.

What he did remember was determining that if he was ever going to get over the ache of missing her, he needed to remove himself from all the things that reminded him of her. When he unpacked, he found all the love letters she had written, all the photos of them together, and put them in a box. He took off the college ring she had given him as a graduation present and dropped that in, too. He set the box on the top shelf of the bedroom closet and knew it would be a very long time before he ever got it down again.

He started to change up his life, convincing himself that he was moving forward. He had been restless on the force for a while now. Carrie had been right about that, and it was a lot more noticeable to him now that he didn't have anything else to focus on. He liked the camaraderie, but he wasn't really satisfied being a beat cop. He was inquisitive and detail-oriented, and his job didn't really give him a chance to use those traits. He knew he'd make a good detective, be good at investigating and interrogating like Will did. But that was a decade down the road for him. He was a still a rookie cop and hadn't paid his dues like Will had, and he knew he didn't want to wait that long for the payoff.

He transferred over to the crime lab and began his training as a CSI Level One. It suited him from the start, and it was the only thing since Carrie left that he managed to take an interest in and even get excited about. The first time he crossed the yellow tape, he felt that sense of import, that sense of contribution. He felt valued. He even felt a little cocky when he saw the onlookers watching him. He was The Man.

But it hurt to be in Dallas, hurt to go to the places that he and Carrie had gone together. He still bumped into people who didn't know they had broken up and still thought of him as NickandCarrie. He had to look away from their surprised expressions when he told them it "just didn't work out." His mother and sisters gently nudged him to date again, and he grew weary of fighting them on it, not open enough to explain to them that he wasn't about to put his fragile and battered heart out there to be stomped on.

As much as he felt the attention of his family was a little smothering, at the same time he wondered if he was relying on that attention too much to put him back together again. Maybe he'd make more of an effort without a safety net. His dad had interpreted his career change as an indication that he was still "finding himself" and had offered him a job in the DA's office. He admired and respected his father, but maybe it was time to get out from under his shadow, from under Will's. Tall shadows, both of them, and hard sometimes to find the light when they were cast over him.

He began to apply to other crime labs. He wasn't too particular, anything to get the hell out of Dodge, but there was one he had his eye on. He was sent to a seminar in Chicago shortly after he began his CSI training and that's where he first met Grissom. Grissom was conducting a workshop on the role entomology plays in forensic science. Nick was so green that a lot of it was over his head, but he was impressed to the point of being in awe at Grissom's knowledge and intelligence. So he applied to the Las Vegas lab, not just for a chance to work with Grissom but because the Las Vegas crime lab was the largest in the country, not counting the federal lab, and that was just…cool.

When he got to Vegas he made a concerted effort to not take the heaviness of spirit that had haunted him in Dallas with him. His dad still held out a faint hope that he would come back home and work for him, but his mother had always said, "Bloom where you're planted." He intended to do just that. His focus was on being the best CSI he could be, learning the job and doing it well. But he tried to find balance. He joined a health club, found racquetball buddies. Joined a rec baseball league. Even took up paragliding. Made some attempts to attend to his "love life." Dated, had sex, sometimes not choosing too wisely. Joked with Warrick about chicks, light and easy. Let Warrick razz him and tell him way too often, "You gotta get a girl, bro."

The years assumed a familiar rhythm and one rolled into another. Most were good; some were hell. Some were beyond hell. But ghosting through them all were whispers of Carrie. He had been wrong, he realized after his first year in Vegas, about removing himself from all the things that reminded him of her. It hadn't made him miss her any less and he realized, with a jolt of surprise, that there were a lot of things he _wanted_ to remember. Because the truth was, except for his spectacular free-fall at the end, those years with Carrie were the happiest he had ever been.

He commemorated the first anniversary of his arrival in Vegas by getting out his "Carrie box," as he had come to think of it, and taking out the college ring Carrie had given him. He wasn't ready for the pictures or letters, and maybe never would be, but when he put the ring back on his finger he accepted it as a token that he was finally healing, that the punch in his gut when he thought of her was no longer going to double him over. In fact, as the years passed, most of the time the memories, like the ring, were comforting and familiar. He didn't seek them out, usually, but he had gradually come to acknowledge that the memories of her, and yes, even missing and wanting her, had simply become part of who he was. Part of what made him a person.

Some mornings, though, when he slipped on the ring it felt inexplicably heavy, both on his finger and on his heart, and he'd take it back off. He wasn't into self-inflicted pain, and he had acquired a pretty fair self-awareness of when he was feeling, for whatever reason, especially vulnerable. He learned to be cautious. He knew, for instance, that he couldn't talk about her out loud, and hadn't done so until the conversation with Warrick. It had surprised him how vividly the memories came into focus when he shared them, surprised him how much he wanted to reach out and grasp that shirt and buckle.

In a way, he thought ironically, Carrie's leaving had been…instructive. He had learned to deal with the loss of Carrie by not talking about it and by avoiding the things he knew would cause him pain. Later he applied those same tactics after other things he never saw coming sucker punched him and threatened to take him down for the count. Staying away from the triggers, he called it. Usually it worked.

_Except when the triggers come to me_, he thought now. And sharing workspace with Carrie for the past two days was a hell of a big trigger. He had never, until just now, gone back to the tangled tapestry that was their last night together, threads of exultation and despair interwoven. And now that he had…now that he had…what?

He took stock. Yeah, he was drained and yeah, damnit, there were tears on his cheeks and he was snot-nosed. But he was still here. And now maybe that he had let the most painful memories run their course, let them have him after ten years of so carefully having his guard up, now maybe he didn't have to put so much energy into fending them off. Maybe, when he worked with Carrie again, maybe he didn't have to try so hard to keep from looking into her eyes, to keep from brushing against her when they passed. Maybe he could even enjoy having her here, enjoy the pleasures of working with an intelligent, attractive woman. _Pretty good at that,_ he thought, _always knew how to do that. _

He got up and went into his bedroom, pulling open the top drawer of his dresser. He had put his ring in the drawer when he had gotten home from shift after Brass had told them that Carrie would be coming. He hadn't trusted himself to wear it, but he could now, now that the flood of memories had come and gone. He slipped it on his finger and then pulled off his shoes, too tired to untie them, and flopped onto the bed. In minutes he was asleep, a deep dreamless sleep from which he didn't emerge for another thirteen hours.


	8. Chapter 8

Warrick held the tread lift next to the tire in the carport outside Jenna Scott's apartment building. He eyed both the tire and the tread image carefully and then turned to Nick.

"It's a match. What's next?"

Nick looked at the notes he had written on the lift in his hand. "Twenty-two A."

They moved to the next parking space and compared the lift to the tire, and it also was a match. They had only taken lifts from the spaces nearest the victim's apartment, and of those had only taken lifts they thought would match a van or SUV. Even so, they had, as Warrick had told Grissom, too many. They were almost four hours into it and it was beginning to feel like nothing more than busy work.

Warrick sighed in frustration. "What are we doing, here, Nick? So we find one that doesn't match the residents, maybe. What have we got? A tire tread from a visitor that we'll never track down."

Nick shrugged. He felt rested and centered for the first time in the last four days. He hadn't seen Carrie yet, and he assumed she was at her hotel. She had spent the day with Sofia, going over with her the theories the Atlanta and Denver teams had come up with as to what kind of database the killer might have access to that let him know his victims were single women who owned a cat. The combination of cat and ketamine had pointed to veterinary clinics, but that hadn't panned out in either city. Neither had Internet chat lines, or magazine subscriptions, or pet stores. They had never found what the victims had in common. Sofia had gotten all the information she could regarding Jenna Scott and her gray feline: her vet, her favored pet store, the old boyfriend who had given a kitten to her as a present three years ago. It was all meaningless until they had something to compare it to, but it was information they had to have ready when needed, just like the tire treads.

"We don't have anything now," Nick told Warrick, "but it might mean something later."

"Yeah," Warrick said heavily. "I have to tell you, bro, I'm not really looking forward to that." He had been on edge for the last hour, his instincts telling him that this would be the shift when they would find the serial's next victim, and as the predawn hours approached he found himself checking his cell phone to make sure it was on and charged. He was reaching for it when it sounded its electronic jingle, and he jumped. Nick's went off at the same time, and the two of them simultaneously read the text message that had been sent to them both.

Nick squinted at the address on the illuminated screen. "West side, right?"

Warrick nodded. "Yep. You drive." He felt too fidgety to be at the wheel, but Nick seemed relatively laid back, at least in comparison to how he had been the last few days. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't working with Caroline Brighton just now, but whatever it was, Warrick hoped it would last. He knew the psychologist would have gotten the same message that they did, so he'd find out soon enough if the two of them were going to revert back to the stilted formality they had tried so hard to maintain. It really was painful to watch, especially after what Nick had shared with him about their relationship back in Texas.

As soon as they got to the dumpsite, any speculations about Nick's past love life plummeted far to the bottom of Warrick's list of concerns. Nick maneuvered the Denali next to one of four patrol cars parked in the lot of a small strip mall, and Warrick looked around. There were no spectators this time, and the only unfamiliar face he saw was a man in a uniform he didn't recognize and decided it was a security guard from the company hired to patrol the lot. But the rest he could easily identify. Both David Phillips and Doc Robbins were there. Grissom was there with Catherine, Greg, and Sara. Brass was there, and so was Sofia, which meant she was working a double. Dr. Brighton was just pulling up in her rented Toyota Camry. And Conrad Ecklie was there, and so was the undersheriff.

Warrick gave a low whistle. "Damn. Hey, Nick? Somethin' tells me we're not lead on this thing anymore."

Nick was taking it all in as well. "Ya think?"

They grabbed kits and cameras and joined the growing cluster that was gathered around the yellow tape encircling the body at the back of the parking lot. Only Grissom had crossed the tape, and he was taking pictures of the plastic-wrapped corpse, taking way more than any of them would have, Warrick thought. Warrick turned to Catherine, who, like the others, was watching Grissom.

"What do we know?"

"Security guard found her at 4:15 when he made his rounds. She wasn't there fifteen minutes earlier. Said he went around the back side to patrol and when he came back around front, she was there."

Warrick shook his head in wonder. "He's bold as hell."

Caroline Brighton had joined them. "He is," she agreed. "But he can afford to be. He does his legwork first. He had the patrols timed. And he knew if he dumped her at the far edge of the lot, he'd be out of range of the security cameras."

She looked over to the row of stores. There were cameras over the entrances of each, but none were positioned to view the back row of the parking lot. She scanned the area and then stepped away from the others to stand in the center of the parking lot. She stood stock still, and Nick watched her. She reminded him of a deer, silently poised to take in its surroundings, heightened senses determining its safety. He saw her stiffen and walked over to her.

"You see something?"

She still had not moved. "The premises are secured, right?"

"Sure. The place is crawling with cops. Eight uniforms on the perimeter, and two detectives on the scene, not to mention the undersheriff. And that's not counting the cops out on the street right now, trolling for anything they might find."

"It's the kind of crowd he likes. He's drawing power from it."

Nick looked at her sharply. " 'Drawing'? As in, right now?"

Carrie looked at him evenly and spoke lowly. "Yes. He's here."

Nick's voice rose to a screech. "_Here_, here?"

Carrie put a hand on his arm. "Shh. He's watching. I can feel it."

Nick looked around. It was a small strip mall, seven stores, in a fairly up-scale part of town, with residential neighborhoods on the blocks in front and behind. It was nicely landscaped with tall trees in planters further out and with shrubs closer to the shops. A shiver made his skin tingle and he felt suddenly exposed in the middle of the parking lot. He put a hand on Carrie's back and nudged her forward to the protective circle of the others. He sought out Brass, who was talking to the security guard.

"Hey, Jim, you need to…"

Carrie cut him off. "Captain Brass, you might want to beef up the patrols on the perimeter and in the surrounding five or six blocks. I'm pretty sure the killer revisits his scenes, and given the timeframe for this one, there's a high possibility he's still in the area."

She wouldn't tell the detective what she had just told Nick, that she knew the killer was here. She hadn't seen him; she had felt him. And not for the first time. It had happened both in Atlanta and in Denver. But she couldn't explain how she was so sure, so all she could do was suggest they keep an extra vigilant watch.

Brass sighed, a little disgruntled that a visiting shrink was telling him how to do his job. "Yeah, we figured he might be hanging around. We just called in a canine unit. We've got what we need on this, believe me."

It wasn't just the psychologist he was aggravated with. He was under close scrutiny now by the undersheriff and he couldn't afford to let anything slip by him. And he was pretty sure that in a few days he was going to be working alongside an FBI agent, and that sure as hell didn't sit too well, either. But he got on his radio and told the cops on foot surrounding the stores to move closer in and keep sharp, and he asked for an update from the squad cars.

Nick looked once more warily behind him. He didn't question that Carrie had known the killer was here. He had learned long ago to trust in her intuition. But there was nothing he could do. He doubted the cops were going to get lucky on this one. They were dealing with a practiced murderer who now had fifteen kills to his credit. A murderer who knew how to be elusive.

Nick turned his attention to the body. David Phillips was crouched beside it, Doc Robbins standing close by. As he had with the vic in the park, Super Dave was slitting the length of the plastic down the center. Even though those gathered behind the tape were not technically spectators but were all professionals on the job, just as it had in the park, a collective gasp escaped the assembly when the blood-smeared chest was revealed, the right breast missing.

The security guard crossed himself. "Holy mother of God."

Brass put his hand on his shoulder. "You don't need to be watching this."

The guard shook off Brass's touch. "No. It's not…It's…Shit. I know her."

Brass's voice revealed his surprise. "You _know_ her?"

"She owns the craft store. Murphy's Arts and Crafts." He nodded to the third shop in the row. "That's Ruth Murphy."

Brass took out his note pad. "Yeah. Okay. What can you tell me about her? Do you know were she lives, if she has family around?"

"No. Just her name and that she owns the store. She stays late sometimes to work the books or do inventory. She brings me out coffee." He looked at the body once more, this time seeing that the plastic had been slit down its entire length and pulled apart. He drew in a sharp breath.

"What the fuck? Is that a _cat_?"

Brass took him by the shoulders and turned him around. He motioned to Sofia. "Take his statement and then get going on information on the vic. Get her residence address; see if she has family we can notify. Call me when you have that address."

Brass lifted up the tape and crossed under it. Grissom was taking pictures of the cat, a fat black male with four white stockings on its feet and a white spot under its chin, like a frosty goatee. Brass looked critically at the victim. Other than the fact that she was Caucasian, she couldn't have been more different than their park vic. Jenna Scott was blond and twenty-four, tall, with an athletic, well-toned body. Ruth Murphy was short, about five-four, and overweight by about 40 pounds or so. She was in her mid-forties, he guessed, and he could see the graying roots of her dyed brownish-red hair. But there was no mistaking the marks of the killer that she bore in common with Jenna Scott. The white cord had been twisted tight around her neck. He could see the petechial hemorrhaging of her open brown eyes, the raccoon masks around them. A matching white cord was wound round the neck of the cat. And of course he had butchered her, the same way he had butchered the first vic they found, and all of his vics, for that matter.

Brass turned to Doc Robbins. "You got a TOD?"

"Roughly six hours ago. David did a liver temp."

"Okay. Hey, Gil, you ready to send her to the morgue?"

Grissom took one last photo and then straightened up. "I've got what I need."

Brass nodded. "I need some of your guys to stick with Sofia. We got an ID already. The security guard knows her; says she owns one of the stores. Your guys can process the residence as soon as Sofia has an address confirmed."

Grissom looked at his team waiting patiently on the other side of the tape. None of them had attempted to cross over, waiting, uncharacteristically, to be directed by him. He stepped under the tape and did just that, divvying up the assignments. He figured Nick and Warrick had enough of tread lifts, so he put Catherine, Sara, and Greg on the dumpsite and sent the other two to work with Sofia, with a firm order to hand over the processing of the Murphy residence to days when shift was over. They protested, but he held his ground. This could easily turn into a double, if not another triple, for the two of them if he let them process on their own, and he wasn't going to authorize that. He needed them alert and healthy for what he knew would be difficult days ahead. Besides, he could see Conrad Ecklie, lurking on the outskirts, champing at the bit to get a piece of this high-profile case. For once, he was more than willing to let him. Like Brass, he dreaded the certain arrival of the FBI and the involvement of the media. If he played it right, he could be the guide on the side while Ecklie was the sage on the stage. Fine with him.

Dr. Brighton wanted to get back to the lab and be present for the processing of the body, which Grissom would do himself. Brass was sticking around to see if the canine unit, which was just pulling in, could come up with anything. Grissom headed to his Denali, his pace quickening when he saw Undersheriff McKeen approach. But there was no dodging him, and he sighed, steeling himself for the coming barrage of questions. He would have few answers. Maybe they'd come up with something when they could compare the Scott and Murphy data side-by-side, but, frankly, he doubted it. Nothing rankled Grissom more than a perpetrator who left no probative evidence, and he was pretty sure he was confronted with one now. But he didn't tell McKeen that. Instead, he assured him that the best crime lab in the nation, and the best investigative team in the nation, was on this one. The lab would keep him updated with any information, no matter how trivial it might seem, out of respect for him and his position. Glad to do it. Just contact Conrad Ecklie and he'll be happy to help you out. Thus appeased, McKeen left to bend Ecklie's ear and Grissom drove back to the lab, where Ruth Murphy and her black cat would soon be awaiting him in the morgue.


	9. Chapter 9

Archie Johnson had his work cut out for him. Now that there were two Vegas victims, Grissom was ready to see the files that had been sent from Atlanta and Denver. It was Archie's job to organize the data, and it was a tall order. He had downloaded three disks of information from Atlanta and two from Denver. As Grissom had requested, he began to rearrange the information on the disks, not in chronological order as they were now, but by merging the Denver and Atlanta information together. All of the photos of the first Atlanta victim he juxtaposed with the photos of the first Denver victim and the first Las Vegas victim. He put together all the dumpsite shots of these victims as well as the shots of the homes and apartments of the victims. All the reports--autopsy, lab, and field--he also arranged to correspond with the first victims in each city. He did the same with the second Atlanta and Denver vics and the Vegas vic that had been found that morning. He had the photos of the vic and the dumpsite, but the residence photos had not yet been logged into evidence, and as far as he knew Ecklie and his day guys were still processing it, pulling a double.

The AV tech had been at it for four hours, and if he closed his eyes, he could still see the images. Bloody, lopsided chests, white cords around necks, dead cats with matching white cords around theirs. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was on the last Atlanta victim and the last Denver victim. He had come in early to have this done by the time Grissom and his team came in, and he almost made it. He looked at his watch and grinned in satisfaction. Twelve-ten. Damn, he was good. He pulled all the photos relating to the Atlanta vic first. He made a mental checklist as the information appeared on his screen: dumpsite photos, check; shots of woman with missing right breast, check; there's the dead cat, a calico this time, check; photos of the woman's home, nice place, check. And then a photo of a shoe-box-sized package addressed to Dr. Caroline Brighton at the Atlanta crime lab. Followed by several photos of the contents of that package.

Archie drew in his breath sharply and inserted the second Denver disk. All the photos of the last victim he had expected were there, but there was no photo of a cat placed on the victim's body. There was, however, a photo of a package, same size as the one in Atlanta, this one addressed to Dr. Caroline Brighton in care of the Denver lab. He knew what the contents of the package would be before he saw the image. He made printouts of these package photos and of the ones from Atlanta and then picked up the phone.

Grissom was in his office, going over the lab reports for the second time. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, or even why he was still looking at them. Certainly there was nothing unexpected. Like Jenna Scott, Ruth Murphy had ketamine in her system and showed evidence of postmortem sexual assault. The cat had ketamine in its system as well and had been strangled while alive. Nick and Warrick had begun to process the residence. It was a nice home, an expensive terracotta-tiled split-level that the vic had won in her divorce settlement three years ago. Per their supervisor's instructions, they had left when their shift ended, but not before finding the can of tuna on the kitchen floor. They had also lifted some tire treads from the drive and front of the house, only three this time, but they hadn't yet compared them to any of the lifts taken from the Scott apartment complex. Of greatest interest were the wheelchair tracks that cut across the grass from the sidewalk to the driveway. Grissom was anxious to view the photos of the tracks from the other cities and compare them. He was about to pick up the phone to ask Archie where things stood when Archie called him instead.

"Grissom? I think you'd better come in here. There's something you're going to want to see."

There was a nervous edge to Archie's usually calm tone, and Grissom hurried to the AV lab. When he got there, Archie wordlessly handed him the photos he had printed. Grissom took them and looked at them carefully. An index finger pushed his glasses further up on his nose and he pursed his lips.

"Can you call up the photo of the last Denver victim?" he asked Archie.

"Sure." Archie got it up on screen.

"Print it out," Grissom said, poising his hand over the printer, ready to receive it.

He put it in the stack with the others and picked up the phone. "Jim? Is Dr. Brighton with you? Good. I need both of you to come over here. We'll be in the layout room."

Grissom took out his cell and sent everyone on his team the same text message: _Layout room. Now_.

Archie got his attention before he left the room. "I have all the information organized onto new disks whenever you're ready for them. Made copies for Captain Brass, too."

"Thanks, Archie. Good job. I'll deal with this first, and then I'll take a look."

He sighed heavily as he entered the hallway. He wasn't sure exactly how he was going to "deal with this," but what he knew for sure was that Caroline Brighton had some explaining to do.

His team was only fifteen minutes into the shift and they were easily rounded up. They were in the layout room even before he got there, quizzing each other as to the reason they had been summoned. Five pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly when he came into the room.

Nick spoke for all of them. "What's up?" He hoped whatever it was they could make this quick. He was anxious to compare the tire tread impressions they had gotten from the Murphy place to the stray ones they had from the Scott complex.

Grissom did not reply, but he turned on the light to the layout table and deliberately arranged the photos onto the surface. His team gathered around the table, inspecting the photos. They looked from the photos to each other to their boss, not sure how to process what they were looking at.

Sara finally spoke. "The killer sent these to her?"

"So it would seem," Grissom replied, his voice revealing no emotion.

Greg leaned over and looked closely at the photos of the package contents. The strangled cat that had been placed in the Atlanta box was white, the one in the Denver box a brown tabby. "But all the cats were accounted for," he said.

"No, they weren't." Grissom picked up the last photo Archie had printed out and set it back down again in front of Greg. This was the oldest of the victims, a woman who appeared to be in her early fifties. There was no cat positioned on the nude body.

"Dr. Brighton said it was found separately," Warrick said. "I guess this is what she meant."

Catherine shook her head, puzzled. "I don't understand. Why send them to her?"

Grissom looked out the door into the hallway, where Brass and Caroline Brighton were approaching. "I guess you'll have to ask her that."

Only Nick had remained silent, his eyes fixed on the photos, studying the addresses on the boxes, his face paling when he saw the content photos. He looked now at Carrie as she entered the room, as did the others. She could feel herself the center of eyes and she hesitated in the doorway, not approaching the group gathered around the table. But Brass came in and went straight to the table, looking at the photos spread out upon it.

"What the hell? What is this, Gil?"

"They were in with the information sent from the Atlanta and Denver labs. Maybe Dr. Brighton would be so kind as to enlighten us."

Carrie could hear the sarcasm in his voice, the veiled accusation that she had been withholding information, and she approached the table cautiously. She took a step back when she saw the images. She hadn't given much thought to the information that had been sent from the other labs, not since she had told Grissom that it had been sent quickly and she wasn't sure how it was organized. She hadn't stopped to think that the package photos would be there. But of course they were there. They were a part of this thing, and like it or not, so was she. She looked up from the photos and faced Grissom.

"It's exactly what it looks like it is. He sent me dead cats."

"Yeah, now tell us something we don't know," said Brass impatiently.

"That's all there is," said Carrie matter-of-factly. "I don't know who he is; I don't know why he sent them; I don't know why he sent them to me." She answered each question she knew they would ask. She had answered them in Atlanta and again in Denver.

Grissom wasn't ready to let her off the hook so easily. She had some sort of connection to the killer, and if not, it was obvious the killer had some sort of connection to her. It irked him that she had been here almost five days and had said nothing about this.

"Dr. Brighton, a serial killer has deliberately sought you out. You must have some connection to him."

So many people had grilled her like this, and she was frankly tired of it. So many nights she had stayed awake, anguishing over why the killer had, as Dr. Gissom said, "sought her out." She had come up with nothing, and when she spoke, her voice reflected her frustration.

"Dr. Grissom. I'm a court-appointed psychologist for those who are convicted of sex crimes and are required to seek treatment. Some of my clientele I visit within prison walls, some I don't. I maintain a private practice in which most of my appointments are for those being treated for paraphilia-related disorders. Most of my clients are male, and most have what society considers aberrant sexual behaviors. Yes, it is possible that I have some connection to the killer. And even though the list of who that may be is quite extensive, I can assure you that I have examined it thoroughly and those on it have been eliminated as suspects. I could go over the list with you, if you wish, but it would take many hours."

Greg smiled. She was feisty, and he liked that. A pretty pink flushed her cheeks and the brown and green flecks in her eyes seemed to spark as her emotions rose. He wondered if it would be intimidating to sleep with a woman who made a living ferreting out "aberrant sexual behaviors." He sighed, knowing that he'd never find out. Hell, so far he couldn't even get her to go out for a cup of coffee. But it was fun to wonder just the same.

The others didn't seem as amused. There was an awkward silence in the room, finally broken by Catherine. "It's just as possible that Dr. Brighton has never made contact with the killer," she said. "He may have just picked her out at a scene or from the news and become infatuated with her."

Carrie nodded. "That's not unusual. Criminals, especially serials, sometimes form one-way attachments to a person involved with the case. It could be a news reporter, an investigator, a profiler. They contact those persons, seeking approval, respect. It happens."

Warrick drew in a breath. "Like Nigel Crane."

There were slow nods of dawning understanding from all except Nick, who was suddenly very interested in inspecting his shoes. He had never told anyone in his family about Nigel Crane, and he would have been just as happy if Carrie never knew. Already he had caught her looking at him with too much concern at times, and this wasn't going to help.

"Nigel Crane?"

"Yeah," Greg offered. "He was this weirdo who stalked Nick. Pretended that Nick was his best friend and Nick didn't even remember who he was when he saw him. Right, Nick?"

Nick remained silent and Carrie glanced carefully at him and then back at the others. "Well, there you go. Like I said, it happens."

"But Nick became Nigel's victim," Grissom pointed out, and Nick continued to avert his gaze, afraid of seeing the sympathy in Carrie's eyes if he were to meet them.

"And, I suspect," Grissom continued, "that this killer isn't entirely benevolent toward you, either." He looked harshly at Carrie. "Dr. Brighton, whose cat was in the package sent to you in Atlanta?"

Carrie looked at him straight on and her voice was firm when she spoke. "Mine."

She had gotten it when it was a kitten, just eight weeks old. It was a house-warming present to herself, and she brought it home the day she moved to her new property, a small ranch house outside of the city with a barn and enough land to pasture a few horses. She called it Cirrus because it was white and fluffy, like a cloud. It spent its days outside catching mice in the fields or in the barn and spent its nights with her, curled on her lap when she sat in a chair and sprawled across her feet as she lay in bed. She'd had it for five years, and she had cried hard when she had opened the box and seen it lying inside, a white cord wrapped around its snowy neck.

Nick looked up sharply and his voice was louder than he intended it to be. "He killed your cat? He was at your _house_, knew where you lived?"

"He didn't go inside," Carrie said weakly, knowing when she said it that it was of little consequence.

Nick reeled on her. "What the hell difference does that make? He knew where you lived, knew you had a cat, knew where to find it. Damn, Carrie. He was stalking you. The cat was a message to let you know that he was watching you. Were you planning on saying anything about this?"

Now attention had shifted away from Carrie to Nick. Half the group--Grissom, Brass, and Greg--were taken aback by his emotion and by the too-familiar way he addressed her. The other half--Warrick, Sara, and Catherine--had been waiting for it.

But Nick's attention was entirely on Carrie and he ignored the rest of the room. He had a sick feeling in his stomach when he asked his next question, and he braced himself for the answer.

"He found out you were in Denver, sent you a package there. That wasn't your cat. Whose was it?"

This time it took her a while to respond and they could see the tears in her eyes. Grissom answered for her.

"The last victim," he said. And then he added, not asking, "You knew her."

Carrie nodded and spoke carefully, determined not to let the tears fall or the voice shake. "She was a mentor, a friend. I went to grad school in Colorado and I did some of my internship under her. Her name was Margaret Jacobsen. She was a good woman, a brilliant psychologist. When the killings started up in Denver, I went there. The same as I came here. To share what I know, to try to help. I stayed with Maggie, at her house."

"And the killer knew that," Brass concluded. "He was stalking you there, too, sent the dead cat as a message that he had gotten to your friend."

"We tried to get to her, to warn her," Carrie said. "But he had already killed her by the time I got the package. We found her body the next morning. It was…well, you can see the photo. It was in the same condition as the others."

This time a tear did escape and she brushed it away impatiently. Nick quickly moved to stand next to her and without thinking he put his arm around her. She leaned into him gratefully, drawing the comfort. At the same time they both seemed to remember themselves, and he withdrew his arm and she moved a step away from him.

Greg was watching with interest. He had been crushing big time on the attractive psychologist ever since he had picked her up at the airport, but from the looks of things, Nick had it just as bad. He shook his head in sympathy as Dr. Brighton drew away from him. Poor bastard. Well, they could commiserate together over a few stacks of pancakes when they got off shift.

Catherine had been watching, too, and felt a pang of pity for her. But she also felt concern. "He may know you're here in Vegas," she said.

Carrie had collected herself and spoke without emotion. "Yes, he might," she agreed.

Nick shook his head. He had a sudden flash of Carrie in the parking lot of the strip mall, standing so still, exposed by herself in the center of the asphalt. Realization hit him, and his dark eyes were accusing when he looked at her.

"You're trying to draw him out."

She didn't deny it. "Look, I don't know what he wants with me, or why he's contacted me. He's going to kill whether I'm here or not. His interest in me is just…I don't know. Maybe just an amusement. But for whatever reason he _is_ interested in me, and I suspect he's going to want to know whether I'm here or not. Or maybe he already knows, and wants to see me again. In either case, he's revisiting scenes, hanging around dumpsites, watching. If we know that, then let's put the knowledge to use."

Nick felt his heart jump in his chest, and his stomach lurched when he saw Brass, first and foremost a detective, nodding his head.

"You're right. We need to use what we've got. If he's looking for you, we can use that. Take you back to the scenes, have someone take photos of anyone in the area. Increase the patrols at the previous scenes when you're there. We might get a lucky break."

Nick had heard enough. He directed his anger toward Brass. "She's not bait, Jim. And she's not equipped to do this. She's not a cop. What do you want, to catch your lucky break by turning her into his next victim? You want a picture of her sliced up to add to the collection?"

Brass, like the others, looked stunned. He glanced at Grissom as if for support, and then back at Nick. "Jesus. We'd have her covered. We'd have a tail on her, and we sure as hell wouldn't let anything happen to her. Damn, Nicky, what the hell do you think I am?"

Nick ignored the question. He, too, looked at Grissom. "She needs to go back to Atlanta. She's confirmed his presence, given us his profile. We don't need her anymore."

Grissom kept his voice low. He could hear the emotion and anger in Nick's, and he knew he had to be careful not to match it. He'd dealt with Nick before when he was like this, when Nick's emotions bested his judgment, and he knew now was not the time to reprimand him but rather to try to reason with him.

"We do need her here, Nick. In two days the FBI is sending an investigator, and the only reason they're not sending a profiler too is because they know Dr. Brighton is here."

"We have our own profilers," Nick argued.

"We have our own investigators, too, but that's not going to stop them from sending one of their own. Besides, we don't have anyone who's as familiar with this as Dr. Brighton is, and you know that."

Carrie had been watching in silence, but she could hold back no longer. Nick and Dr. Grissom were having a conversation as if no one else, including her, was in the room.

"You're talking about me as if I'm not standing right here. Dr. Grissom's right. I'm not going back to Atlanta. You need a profiler here, and I'm the one you need. If I can help get this bastard off the street, then I'll do it. Captain Brass, whatever you need me to do, I'll do. I trust you."

At those words, Brass looked at Nick, the hurt still in his tired eyes. He smiled wanly at Carrie. "Okay. I'll get back to the station, work a few things out. We done here, Gil?"

Grissom nodded, then turned off the light on the table as a signal that their meeting was concluded. Nick wasn't quite ready for it to be over. He made no attempt to hide the anger in his voice.

"Neither one of you gives a damn about anything but solving this case, even if you put someone else at risk to do it."

Brass started to argue, but Grissom held up his hand and shook his head. Nick left the room. He was pissed at both Grissom and Brass, so pissed his head was pounding and he could hear a thundering in his ears. He headed to the locker room and stood there a minute, trying to calm down. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He knew the anger was a smokescreen. He did this more often than he cared to admit; he got pissed when really he was just plain scared. And he was scared for Carrie. That son of a bitch wasn't just waiting for her to appear at his scenes; he was stalking her. He knew where she lived in Atlanta, knew where she had been staying in Denver. Was he stalking her here, too? Did he know her hotel, know what car she had rented? The thought of it made his skin crawl. He wanted nothing more than for her to be back in Atlanta, safe. And when he couldn't have that, he had taken it out on Grissom and Brass, especially Brass. He already regretted what he had said to him. As soon as he felt a little more even-keeled, he'd go over to the station and apologize.

For now, he just needed a little more time. He opened his locker and stood in front of it, not really sure that he wanted anything out of it. But being here gave him someplace to be away from the others, and he needed that for just a while longer, could still feel the anger hot within him.

He wasn't alone for long.

"You know you were out of line in there."

He figured someone was going to follow him in here. He was betting on Warrick, but he wasn't too surprised to see Sara.

"You don't want to pick a fight with me right now, Sara. You'll lose." His accent was thick and she knew enough to take that as a warning.

"I didn't come here to fight."

He still had not turned around to look at her. "No? You came here to lecture me, then."

"I didn't. I'm sorry. I didn't start off very well." She touched his shoulder and instantly withdrew her hand when she felt him stiffen.

"Can you turn around, please? Please, Nick."

He sighed audibly and turned to face her.

"I'm just worried about you, that's all. Look, I know you and Dr. Brighton…Carrie…had a relationship once and…"

Nick slammed his locker shut. "Damnit! I used to be able to trust Warrick not to spread stuff I tell him all around the lab."

Sara held up her hand. "Hold on. Warrick only said that you and Carrie knew each other back in Texas. He didn't say anything about a relationship."

"Then how…"

"Carrie gave it away."

Nick looked at her questioningly.

"She cried once," Sara explained, "when she was watching you. Catherine and I saw it."

He digested that. He had been so distracted these past few days thinking of how hard it was on him to have Carrie here that he hadn't considered that it would be just as difficult for her to be here. Had he forgotten already how she had fled, in tears, from him when she had seen him in the print lab?

"Who else knows?" He wasn't sure why he had been trying so hard to conceal his past with Carrie, but he knew it was important to him to do so. Although, given the way he had just acted in the layout room, he supposed he was raising suspicions.

Sara considered thoughtfully. "Well, Warrick, obviously, since you told him. And Carrie talked to Catherine and me a little."

He arched an eyebrow and Sara touched his shoulder again, this time not removing her hand. "She needed someone, Nick. Someone to talk to about this. Maybe...maybe you do, too."

Nick shook his head. "Look, Sara, I know you mean well. But I'm fine. I'll admit I was having a hard time with her here for a few days, but it's okay now."

"You didn't sound okay a few minutes ago. In fact, Grissom was right behind me, looking for you, I'd bet. If you don't want to talk to me, you'd better at least figure out fast what you're going to say to him."

Grissom. It always came down to Grissom. "Does he know? About me and Carrie, I mean."

Sara shrugged. "When it comes to other people's emotions, Grissom has a way of not seeing the evidence unless he's looking for it. And I truly believe he makes a concerted effort not to look for it."

Nick smiled. She called that one right. "Thanks, Sara. For being a friend."

She patted his shoulder. "You have lots of them, you know. Friends, I mean."

Before he could respond she quickly withdrew her hand and took a step away from him. She turned to the doorway. "Hey, Grissom."

Grissom nodded to her. "Can you give us a minute, Sara?"

Sara smiled reassuringly at Nick. "Sure. See you later, Nick."

"Sit down, Nick," Grissom ordered without preamble.

Nick sat on the bench in front of the lockers and Grissom sat next to him. Nick watched him warily, determined not to look at the floor like a kid who was being reprimanded for backtalking a parent.

"Do you want to talk about what happened back there?" It was posed as a question, even though they both knew it wasn't. But Nick wasn't going to make this easy on Grissom. Sometimes he'd let Grissom question his emotions and he'd remain silent. And sometimes, maybe not often enough, he wouldn't.

"Would it make a difference if I said no?"

"No. Not this time. What you said to Brass was completely off base."

Nick knew he was right and was man enough to admit it. "I know. I'm going to apologize to him."

"Good. But that's not really the issue here." He paused, trying to find the most inoffensive way to phrase his words. He suspected Nick had formed some sort of attachment to Dr. Brighton since she had been here, and it was a lot easier to reprimand him for his treatment of Brass than it was about this. The psychologist was attractive and personable, and he supposed it was natural that Nick would be drawn to her. But when that caused Nick to become overly emotional and lose perspective, then it was his job to step in and say something.

"Nick…Nicky, I don't know what's going on between you and Dr. Brighton, but…"

Grissom never got a chance to finish his sentence. Nick felt his face grow warm, the anger rise. He couldn't explain it, not even to himself. He just knew that what he had with Carrie, or what he used to have, anyway, was his. _His_, and he didn't want Grissom to have it. Grissom had so much of him. Grissom knew so much of him. Grissom knew what was on the tapes Nigel Crane had made of him in his most private moments; Grissom knew about his freak-out when he first realized he was in that fucking box; shit, Grissom even knew his childhood nickname. But Grissom wasn't going to have any part of this.

"You're right," Nick said bluntly. "You don't." He got up and turned his back to Grissom and headed for the door.

"We're not done here," Grissom said, his voice a warning.

Nick didn't heed it. "Yeah, we are."

Grissom shook his head, more to himself than to Nick. He knew what he had to say, hated to say it. There were times, and this was one of them, when he really hated his supervisory role. 

"When you head out that door, Nick, keep on going. You're going home."

That was enough to get Nick to stop and turn around. "You can't do that. I've got those tread lifts to compare and…"

"Yes, Nick, I can. Go home. If you don't want to talk to me about whatever it is that's eating away at you right now, fine. Go home and figure it out on your own. You've got ten long hours to think about it. When you come back, you can help Ecklie and his guys with the evidence that was collected at the Murphy house."

Nick stared at him incredulously, waiting for him to change his mind. But Grissom said nothing else, and Nick was left with no choice but to comply. It was cold outside and his jacket was in his locker, but he didn't stop to get it. He hurried from the room, eager to put as much distance between him and his supervisor as he could, as fast as he could. But even as he hurried down the hall, he could see again the hurt in Brass's eyes. Yeah, he'd go home as ordered. But first, he had an apology to make.


	10. Chapter 10

It took Nick a while to answer the door after Carrie rang the bell, and Warrick waited in the drive with the engine running, not wanting to pull away and leave her standing there at one in the morning until he was sure Nick was going to open the door. When Carrie had asked him how to get to Nick's, it seemed easiest to just take her to him than to try and explain to her how to navigate her way here from the lab or have her try to follow in her rental. He knew she was worried about Nick and he knew, even if Nick was too thickheaded to acknowledge it, that the two of them had some talking to do that couldn't be put off any longer. But he felt a little guilty about springing her on him when he knew Nick was in retreat mode. So when Nick finally came to the door, Warrick backed out quickly and took off. He figured Nick would have to let Carrie in if she had nowhere else to go.

Nick stood in the doorway and frowned as he watched Warrick's truck pull away so fast the tires squealed. He looked at Carrie but offered no greeting. He stated the obvious. "Warrick brought you here."

Carrie nodded. "I asked him to. He couldn't stay, though. Had to get back to the lab."

"At least someone had to."

Carrie refused to offer him sympathy. "Quit feeling sorry for yourself. You'll be back soon enough."

He glared at her, not feeling friendly. "I'd be back now if you hadn't…"

Her eyes were every bit as hard as his. "No way. No way you're pinning this on me. You'd be back there if you had acted professionally instead of…"

She stopped herself. This wasn't starting off well. "Look, are you going to let me in, or are we going to stand out here in the cold and argue about it?"

He stepped aside and let her in. It was a chilly night, and he had just gotten out of the shower. He had barely had time to towel off and throw on a pair of sweats when the doorbell rang. His hair was still damp and tousled, and he was barefooted and bare-chested. Carrie looked at him appraisingly, although she hadn't meant to be so bold about it. He had filled out these past years. His neck was thicker, as were his biceps and deltoids. His chest was broader, and although he still had a six-pack, his ab muscles weren't as clearly defined as she had remembered them being. But they were defined enough. A single bead of water that his towel had missed rolled slowly down the smoothness of his chest and she wanted, suddenly, to catch it on her tongue, to balance it there while her lips hovered, so close, so close, against his warm skin.

The desire was strong and urgent. And unbidden. Carrie looked away quickly and felt a blush flushing her cheeks. But Nick saw her color rise, and he, too, reddened. He motioned to the couch.

"Sit or...something. There's beer in the fridge. I'll be back."

Nick left the living room and Carrie took advantage of his absence to look around. His house was small, but tidy. She had expected that. He had always been an organized housekeeper. The last two years they were together, when he was on the force and she was still taking classes, he was the one who did most of the household chores. Probably better than she would have done them, although she never would have told him that. It was one of his personality quirks that he hated not doing his best on any job he began, even if it was just vacuuming a room or tidying up a kitchen.

He had a few personal touches scattered about, some sports trophies from both his high school and college days, some pictures of his family. There were no pictures of the two of them, but then she hadn't expected any. She didn't have any at her house, either, at least not in plain view. When she had first left him, she missed him so much that she tried to draw comfort from surrounding herself with the things that reminded her of him. She busied herself making scrapbooks of the photos she had taken of him during their three years together, and she separated them by sections: Nick at his baseball games, Nick on his horse at the ranch, Nick with his family and with hers at the various gatherings they had attended together, Nick on his graduation days from A&M and from the academy, and so many that she had taken just because it had been a happy day together and she had wanted to capture it. She had several books when she was finished, and she would lie on her bed and look through them, crying, as she hugged the goofy purple bear he had won for her at a ball toss at the fair.

Finally her roommate convinced her that she was going to make herself sick if she kept doing that every night, so she put the books away in a drawer and tried to figure out how to make herself content without him, without his laughter, without his companionship, without his touch. It was easier after she started grad school because she was so busy, and then she decided she liked being busy and even liked moving at an almost frenetic pace, and she kept on going after grad school and got her Ph.D. It was what she wanted, and what she had left Nick to do, and she had no regrets. But that first year without him had been nothing but heartache and misery, and there had been times she didn't think she was going to get through it.

Carrie shook her head and went into the kitchen. She was having to navigate more of her own emotions than she had counted on, considering that her purpose in coming was to clear the air with Nick and make sure that there would be no repeat of the scene in the layout room. It should have been straightforward enough. This reverie into the past felt self-indulgent and certainly purposeless. And her earlier reaction to Nick without his shirt on was, truth be told, both disturbing and ridiculous.

She stood in front of the refrigerator, trying to decide if she wanted to open it and look for a beer. A child's crayoned scrawl on a paper card caught her eye. She took off the take-out pizza magnet that attached it to the refrigerator door and looked at the card. She was holding on to it when Nick came into the room. His hair was combed and he was newly shaven. He was wearing black jeans and a black tee shirt, the tee tucked into the firmly belted jeans. He had on shoes and socks, the shoes tightly laced. He might as well have been in full armor.

Carrie looked down at the card to hide a smile. There was a brown crayon house behind a pond of blue on the front, and printed across the clouded sky were the words "Thanks for finding me."

She opened the card and read the message on the inside, then smiled openly and handed the card to Nick. "You found a job you're passionate about," she told him. "And good at."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Most days." He carefully put the card back onto the refrigerator and eyed her critically. "Why are you here?" he asked her bluntly.

_To tell you to act like a professional around me_, she was going to say. But instead, she both found and voiced the truth. "I'm worried about you," she said honestly.

He shook his head and she could hear the exasperation in his voice. "I have enough people around me to do that. I don't need you to do it."

Carrie decided she might as well be completely honest with him if she was going to try to bridge the awkwardness between them.

"I went to see you last May, when you went back home."

It didn't surprise him that she knew he had gone home, that she knew what had happened to him that May. He had always kept track of her through the mutual friends they still had, and he assumed Carrie had done the same. But he was never aware that Carrie had come to see him.

"You did? I never knew that."

"No, I don't suppose you did. Your brother was like a pit bull I couldn't get past. He wouldn't let me see you. Finally I just went back to Atlanta."

Nick sighed. "Don't blame him, Carrie. He was being protective, I guess. Will was pretty much the one who had to pick up the pieces after…"

"After I left you," she finished.

"Yeah." He had decided that he wasn't going to dodge it any more.

Nick thought of his visit back home. He had spent two weeks there after he got out of the hospital. He had started out at the ranch, but it was anything but restful there. Sisters and their husbands, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors, all coming in a seemingly unending stream to visit him, to check on him. To assure themselves that he was going to be okay. But he was exhausted, not sleeping at night, and self-conscious about the still-visible lumps on his face and arms. Three days of that, and Will announced that he was taking him home with him.

Just like before, Nick thought now, although he hadn't made the connection then. Then he just knew that he was grateful. Will and Janet were empty nesters now. Becky was in her last year of law school at Baylor. Her younger sister, Susan, was a sophomore at Rice in Houston. Adults now, both of them. For Nick, it sometimes seemed that the years had such a sameness to them that it felt like time wasn't passing, but when he went home and saw the changes in his nieces and nephews, he knew that it was not only passing, but passing quickly.

It was quiet at Will's, and he found the peace he sought. Will was good at keeping people away when he sensed that Nick needed to be alone, and he was just as good at calling his mother and asking her to drop by when he sensed that Nick needed that, too. It didn't surprise him that Will kept Carrie away. Will, more than anyone, had seen Nick desperately trying not to slip off the edge of the world after Carrie left, and Will had a keen understanding of what losing Carrie had cost his little brother.

Nick thought of that last groveling phone conversation he had with Carrie, in Will's living room. Janet and the girls had cleared out, but Will hung back. Waiting to catch him if he fell, maybe? He remembered when it was over he literally did need catching. He was so unsteady on his feet and his vision so blurred by those goddamn tears that he had stumbled when he rose from the chair to put the phone back. And Will was there, a strong arm to hold him upright. But Nick had pushed him off and told him viciously to go to hell, irrationally blaming Will for making him take the call in the first place. Carrie had been right; it did feel better to be pissed than to be hurting. Will took it in stride, not fooled. But if Will had failed to spare Nick that conversation, Nick figured, he was ready for the next, even if it took ten years in coming. Like before, he had been watching Nick, watching him struggle to regain footing, and knew Nick didn't have the energy reserves he needed to see Carrie again after all this time. He had been right, too, Nick knew. Right to not even tell him she was there.

"I couldn't have seen you then," Nick told her honestly.

"It's all right. I just needed…just needed to know that you were, that you _are_ okay, after…after what happened to you." She searched his eyes. "_Are_ you?"

He shrugged. "Shit happens. It happens and you deal and move on."

She looked at him doubtfully. "Just like that?"

His voice was harsher than he meant it to be. "No, Carrie. Not 'just like that.' You fall, and you get back up. And you fall again, and maybe again. And sometimes you fall even when you've convinced yourself that you've gained perfect balance. But you never stop getting back up. You never stop moving forward."

He looked at her sternly. "Shit happens," he repeated. "But you don't seek it out, Carrie. And that's what you're doing right now, with this case. Trying to deliberately put yourself in the path of that bastard."

She returned his gaze, her own eyes bright with anger. "I'm not stupid, Nick. I don't want to get hurt and God knows I'm not _trying_ to get hurt. I'm just trying to do my job."

He shook his head. "This is _not_ part of your job."

"Yes, it is. I'm here to help get this monster, aren't I? Isn't that why you guys called me?"

Nick didn't answer her, and she continued. "What I do is different than what you do, Nick. You look for evidence, for what a killer leaves behind. But I get inside his head, I _learn_ him, figure out what makes him tick, what might throw him off. I've been studying this guy for a long time now. I _know_ him, know he's revisiting scenes looking for me, _know_ that's the way we're going to get him. You want me to ignore that? Would you ignore that?"

He shrugged noncommittally. "I just don't want you to…"

Carrie cut him off. "It's not about what you want. It's about us doing our jobs, about us going in there tomorrow and acting like the professionals we are, and working together to get that son of a bitch off the streets. And you know what, Nick, I think it's time to be honest about this whole thing. If there's something you want to say to me, then say it. And I don't mean about the case."

He considered. When she had first gotten here, there was a lot he could have said to her, a lot about how hard it was to have her here, a lot about how much he was afraid to face the memories having her here was going to stir up. But after he had let the memories come, he honestly could tell her that his anger with her was about the case, about his fear for her safety and nothing else.

Nick moved into the living room and sat on the couch. Carrie followed and sat next to him instead of in the chair opposite, determined to close the gap between them.

"When you left," Nick said carefully, "I sort of fell apart for a while, and it took me a long time to really get back on my feet. But through it all, I was never mad at you. I knew why you left, and maybe I even knew it was the right thing. I wasn't mad at you then for that, and I'm not mad now. It just…hurt a lot. Having you here made me go back there, and it was…painful."

Her face softened and he could see her eyes begin to glow with tears. She had been on a pretty good rant a minute ago and he hadn't expected her to change gears so fast. "It's okay, Carrie. It is. I'm sorry I'm being a jackass about the case. I just hate the thought of that creep out there, maybe watching you. Look, tomorrow when we go in, I'll…"

"It's not okay. It's never been okay." She was crying now, and Nick was sorry he had been so truthful. He hadn't intended his words to have that effect on her.

"Carrie…"

"I asked you if you had anything to say to me, but I have something to say to you. Something I never got a chance to say, and it's never going to be okay until I say it."

She took his hand and held it, and he was a little surprised that he had no impulse to draw his hand away. Instead, he found himself lacing his fingers through hers.

"I never told you how sorry I am. I never asked you to forgive me." Carrie wiped her tears away with her free hand. "I know what I did to you, Nick. I know how sudden it was and how much it hurt. I know what we had together and what I walked away from. I know what we meant to each other. And I never asked you to forgive me for hurting you the way I did. Please, Nick, I'm asking you now. God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She was crying hard and Nick reached up and touched her face, wiped tears away with the side of his thumb. "Carrie. Listen to me. If you need my forgiveness, you've got it. But there's nothing to forgive. What happened hurt like hell, and I won't tell you it didn't. But I never blamed you for it. It was just how it _was_. I know you did what you needed to do, and I think what got me through it was knowing that you didn't _want_ me hurt, knowing that you still loved me even when you left. I knew it was hard on you, too."

"I missed you so much," Carrie said softly. "I cried almost every night that first year. I wasn't sure I had done the right thing."

Nick put his hand under her chin and gently tilted her head up, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Are you sure now?"

She answered without hesitation. "Yes. I like who I am, what I do. I'd be someone different if I had stayed."

Nick smiled gently. "I like who you are, too. Don't go back there anymore, Carrie. It was a long time ago and it helped make us who we are, but going back doesn't help anything."

She tried to return his smile. "You never stop moving forward."

"Right." And then he kissed her. He hadn't intended it to happen, but one of his hands was holding hers, and his other was cupping her face, and her eyes were soft with tears, and…and he kissed her.

It started out gently, but it didn't stay that way. Carrie returned the kiss with a passion and force that surprised him, but not her. The desire she had felt for him earlier in the evening was unleashed, and she made no attempt to rein it back in. Nick didn't try to slow things down, either. Lips parted and tongues darted, and mouths devoured. Carrie wrapped her arms around him and clutched at the cloth of his shirt, pulling it out of his waistband and then sliding her hands underneath the fabric. She wanted his back, wanted to feel the muscles of his back ripple beneath her touch. He lifted his arms over his head and she pulled the shirt off, then found his back again, her hands moving, stroking, as if of their own volition. She remembered the droplet of water that had beaded on his chest, and she could have it now. It was gone, of course, but she flicked her tongue against his hard stomach and let her lips hover for a moment before she pressed them against his warm skin, and he tasted glorious.

She wasn't sure when he had done it, but Nick had somehow gotten half of the buttons undone on her blouse and had slid it off her shoulders, below her bra. His mouth feasted on her neck and shoulders, his breath hot against her tingling skin. His hands found the front clasp of her bra and he undid it, then fumbled impatiently with the rest of the buttons of her shirt and pulled the bra and blouse together off her arms. He cupped his hands under her breasts and then brought down his mouth, craving her, satisfying his hunger for her, lost in the scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her.

Her busy hands worked the buckle of his belt, undoing it and then unzipping the fly of his jeans. She slid his jeans and boxers down from his hips and he let her, his erection becoming uncomfortable against the confines of fabric. A warm hand fisted around him and he groaned, mouth pressed against the yielding flesh of her breast. He dimly knew he had to get control of the situation, and now. The box of condoms in his bedside table seemed miles away. It took everything he had to grab her wrist and still her hand.

"Sweet Jesus. Bedroom. Now."

When they reached the room they struggled out of the rest of their clothes, and he got a condom. Without conscious thought he handed it to her, an awakened habit finding its way to him even now. She took it without hesitation and with quick and familiar skill put it on him. Their hands and mouths found each other again, the barrier of clothing gone, flesh on flesh, all pretense of control now way beyond their grasp.

There was no tenderness to it, no gentleness. There was no consideration, no giving. There was not even exultation or joy. There was only taking. Taking and taking, with hunger and greed and heat. There was no gradual, sensual climb to peak. The climax was a sudden, almost brutal sort of collision that left both of them stunned and gasping.

They pulled away from each other quickly, each retreating to an opposite side of the bed, as if recoiling from further contact. They didn't speak, the only sound that of their harsh breathing as they both sat on the edges of the mattress, backs to each other, fighting to regain normalcy. When their breathing slowed, the silence between them became awkward. Carrie was the first to break it, although she wouldn't turn to him. She felt self-conscious, betrayed by her body's animalistic, consuming need to take from him and be taken by him. She tried to make light of it.

"Okay, then. I guess we got that out of the way."

"Yeah. I guess we did." His voice was husky. He rose from the bed, not looking at her. "I'll…uh…go fix us something to eat."

Carrie waited for him to dress and leave the room, and then she put on her clothes and came out to the small kitchen to help him. He was taking a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator, followed by a block of cheese and some green and red peppers. She watched him quietly, then began opening cupboards in search of plates. What began as strained silence progressed to stilted small talk and then gradually to amiable companionship as he put together an omelet and she made toast and set the table. They talked about their careers, sharing stories of interesting or unusual cases. They both had professions that forced them to confront despicable aspects of human nature, both had at times been too invested in and too drained by certain cases. But they avoided those, and Nick found himself chuckling when he told her about the "missing" wife he finally found bound, by her own consent, to a cheap hotel bed.

They talked about the people they worked with. Nick spoke easily of his friendship with Warrick, of Greg's humor, of Sara's intensity, of Catherine's devotion to Lindsey and her difficult challenge of melding motherhood and graveyard shift. He shared with her the frustration he sometimes felt when Grissom's tunnel-visioned focus on the evidence clashed with his own inclination to empathize with the victims and their relatives.

They talked about their mutual friends and their families. Part of the fallout of ending a long-term relationship had been the sudden disconnect from each other's families, especially for Nick. Nick had missed her parents, warm and easy-going. Her mom had treated him like a favored son, called him "sweetie" and always fixed his favorite things to eat. He had missed playing big brother to Carrie's only sibling, 16-year-old Scott, whom Nick knew sort of idolized him the way he had Will when he was Scott's age. He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed the role he played in the teen's life until, with abrupt finality, his place in Carrie's family was gone.

They didn't talk about their lives outside of the workplace much, although Nick learned that Carrie had some acreage and kept a few horses, which a neighbor was boarding while she was in Vegas. But that's as far as it went. They had each been leading a life this past decade, assumed each had been involved with other people. The box of condoms Nick kept next to his bed was testament to that. But they didn't need to know, didn't want to know. It felt good just to talk, not about the case they were on and not about memories of their past, just comfortable talk with someone who was easy to be with.

By the time they were cleaning up the dishes, any hint of the hesitation and awkwardness that had plagued them since Carrie had arrived in Vegas had vanished. Their hands touched in the soapy water when they both reached for the same plate, and neither drew away. In fact, Nick actually grinned at her as he grasped her hand and pulled her toward him.

"Leave it," he said, not caring just then if he left a dish in the sink or not, and Carrie smiled back at him.

"The only time you ever left the dishes undone was when you had something more…physical on your mind."

"Some things stay the same. Come on."

He led her back to the bedroom and this time they joined together in the artful, synchronized dance of practiced and familiar lovers. Bodies remembered where to touch, how to excite. When to yield, when to command. When to hold back, and finally, when to release.

They lay together afterwards sated and drowsy. Carrie snuggled against him, her head on his shoulder, a finger lazily tracing a path along a defined pectoral muscle of his chest.

Nick caught her hand and looked at her searchingly. He was the one who had initiated this, but now that he could think with his head and not other parts of his anatomy, he was sure that they weren't being at all sensible. "What are we doing, Carrie?"

"Enjoying each other," she said simply.

"We have to be careful." It was both caution and command.

Carrie thought of their last night together, that cold January so many years ago. They had had sex with uninhibited, joyful abandon. And then they had made love with fragile tenderness, hearts and bodies one. They could do neither of those things now, and they both knew it. _Slow this time, Carrie, _he had said to her, _and gentle. _His love for her had caused him to falter, she remembered, and her heart had ached for him. She didn't know how to help him except return his love, and she had, so willingly. _Careful_, she told herself now; _be careful_.

"We will be." She said it as a promise.

Nick hoped she meant it. For his part, it had taken him way too long to figure out how to live his life without her, to _enjoy_ his life without her. There was no way he was going to screw that up now. If he allowed himself the pleasures of taking her to his bed, would it change anything when she went back to Atlanta? Probably not. He was pretty good at handling the inevitable when he saw it coming. It was only when he was blindsided that he lost his balance. Greg had asked him once if he ever just got "lost in life." He was a different person now than the one who had answered that question years ago. Now, he realized, there were times when it was right to live in the moment. Sometimes that moment was all you had.

"We should get some sleep," he told Carrie, "and then I'll take you back to your hotel. I think you should pack your suitcase."

Carrie began to protest. "Damnit, Nick. I told you I'm not…"

"Pack your suitcase," he continued, "and bring it back here. If that bastard is watching you, then I'd feel better if you were here."

"If I stay here, it might put you in danger," Carrie said. "Just like Maggie," she added softly.

Nick shook his head. "No. Not just like Maggie. We know about him, she didn't. I know what to watch out for, Carrie. He's not going to do anything to me. And he's not going to do anything to you. You'll be safe here." He brushed his lips against hers. "Besides, it will make it a lot more convenient for us to…enjoy each other."

She returned his kiss. "I'm all for convenience."

He adjusted his arm around her and settled his head onto the pillow. "You always were a sensible girl."

She smiled at him and closed her eyes, falling asleep in his arms.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes:** Just a reminder that this is rated 'M.' The Bad Guy's not nice.

* * *

Carrie stood under the fanciful glass Dale Chihuly flowers that were suspended from the ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio. She looked up at them and smiled admiringly. The bulbous flowers were bright and even garish, their jaunty colors an unexpected juxtaposition above the tasteful, muted Italian tiles on the floor below them. Carrie felt like the flowers today, she decided. Bright, carefree. She felt far removed from serial killers and lopped off breasts and strangled cats. And she was determined to stay that way, at least until she joined the team for the graveyard shift late in the night.

Dr. Grissom had put Nick on the day shift for the past two days, with Warrick joining him the second day. Ostensibly it was so Nick could continue to process, along with the dayshift team, the evidence from Ruth Murphy's home, and so that the next day he and Warrick could conduct interviews. But Carrie suspected that an underlying reason had been to put distance between Nick and his supervisor. They had seen each other only once, at the end of shift yesterday, and the encounter had gone smoothly enough. Nick had been visibly more at ease for the past several days, both around her and his colleagues, and Warrick had remarked to her that Nick seemed more "like himself." She was glad of it, and she knew his boss was. She witnessed the tension the entomologist held in his carriage and voice as he approached Nick ease away when he left him, sauntering down the hall of the lab with the slope-shouldered gait that she had come to recognize in her short time with the team.

The days had been busy, but not very productive. As with the home of Jenna Scott, there was no sign of forced entry in the Murphy house and nothing seemed out of place. Still, the fibers, hairs, prints all had to be processed. Archie Johnson was still assessing the hard drive of Ruth Murphy's computer, looking, as the CSIs in Atlanta and Denver had done, for any evidence that the killer may have tracked his victims through a chat group or cat fanciers' forum. So far, he had nothing. Neither did anyone else. The prints from the inside and outside doorknob yielded no results but those of the homeowner, and the open tuna can by the cat dish had no prints at all.

They spent the morning of the second day shift, yesterday, interviewing friends and neighbors of the victim. No one reported seeing or hearing anything suspicious in the housing division, which had a neighborhood watch program. The rest of the day was spent interviewing the personnel at the craft store, getting names of regular customers, hoping someone may have seen a man watching Ruth Murphy, as if stalking her. They went back to the recreation center in the park where they had found Jenna Scott, trying to find someone who might have seen a man who had acted strangely around her. But, again, they had come up empty.

Carrie had gone with them, at Captain Brass's request, lingering outside buildings, making herself visible, hoping to draw the killer. Sofia Curtis had been assigned to tail her, and Detective Curtis and two uniformed officers were ready to spring should trouble approach, but it never did. Detective Curtis was prepared to follow Carrie "back to her hotel," but even Nick, who was still acting a little too over-protective of her, had balked at that. For one thing, she wasn't staying at the hotel any longer and for another, Nick didn't want anyone but Warrick to know that. For reasons Carrie still wasn't entirely clear about, he was zealously guarding his personal life when it came to the two of them. Not that she minded. It made it easier to fit in at the lab if she kept her professional objectivity, and gaining the respect of the team was important to her.

She was enjoying staying with Nick. She was happy enough to abandon the La Quinta Inn, which was far removed from the lab and ridiculously inconvenient, but was where the budget-conscious City of Las Vegas had seen fit to house her. Carrie and Nick had found their rhythm together, both in companionship and in sex. The companionship was comfortable, easy. They didn't talk about work these past two days when they returned to Nick's. They just laughed, and talked, and prepared meals together, played Scrabble and watched videos. And had great sex. Nick had reiterated to her this morning what he had told her yesterday morning as she stretched lazily in bed and his hands drew her back down before she could rise: it was great morning aerobics and a suitable replacement for his pre-breakfast run. She had smiled at him indulgently, knowing that he didn't quite believe it, but she had participated with as much energy as her still-drowsy body allowed, which to her surprise, was considerable. It _was_ a highly pleasant way to begin the day, she'd give him that.

He had stayed in bed, lazy and sleepy, but she had been anxious to start her day. She convinced Nick to let her go solo to the Strip, told him that if she was being watched it would be at crime scenes and not in some crowded hotel. She believed that, and felt secure and happy when she had left around eight-thirty. She had mixed him up some pancake batter before she left, but she wanted to wait and have brunch at one of the hotels. She had told him she'd be back around five to make a nice dinner. Warrick, who was baching it while his wife was at work, was going to join them.

It wasn't real, any of it. And she knew it. Fixing meals, playing board games, inviting company over, the morning-and-night sex. What was real was the fact that she lived in Atlanta and had a life there and she would return to it as soon as they caught the killer or he stopped killing in this city and moved on. What was real was the fact that three days ago they had found another body and that meant that two days ago the killer had taken a woman again, probably had already murdered her. What was real was the fact that she was somehow a part of the psyche of a madman and she didn't know how, or why.

Carrie looked back up at the colorful flowers and shrugged. As long as she "knew the score," as Nick would say, and Nick knew it, too, they were calling no harm, no foul. She was going to enjoy her alternate world, at least for the rest of this day. Her stomach growled and she left the hotel, making her way to the pedestrian skybridge that connected the Bellagio to the Paris. It wasn't yet ten, but the bridge was already crowded with pedestrians. She liked the vibrancy of the city, even in the morning hours. Maybe she'd come back some time on a vacation and be a real tourist. For now, brunch at a Parisian "sidewalk" café would be just fine. She wondered if Nick was up yet and had discovered the pancake batter she had left beside the skillet on the stove. She thought about calling him, but didn't want to wake him if he was still in bed. With the hours he usually worked, he rarely had the luxury of lounging in bed until ten on a Sunday morning, and she hoped he was sleeping hard, hoped when he got up he would have in front of him as wonderful a day as she knew was in front of her.

Nick was slow to wake. He felt like he was surfacing out of deep water, like pushing back up to the top for air after taking a dive into a pool. The water was thick, and it smelled of copper. He tried to clear it away with his hands, but only his fingers moved. His arms would not rise up, would not stroke out to move the water. He tried to kick off with his feet, to propel himself up, but his feet felt stuck together, mired in the thickness of the sludge-like water. The smell of copper was stringent in his nostrils and made him gag. He wanted to draw a deep, cleansing breath, but he was afraid he would take in the water, would fill his lungs with it. He held his breath and counted beats. He used to be able to hold it for three minutes when he was younger, when he had contests at the pool with his buddies to see who could last the longest.

He only made it two this time and the air he had held blew out in a ragged cough. He instinctively drew in his breath, and he breathed in air, blessed air, and not the foul water. But the copper was there, still, and he struggled to open his eyes to find the cause of it. His lids were heavy, and he had to concentrate, focus, on giving them the signal to rise. They did, barely, and his vision was blurred through the narrow slits. He was seated in a chair and his head was tipped forward. His head hurt, pounded, and he felt dizzy. He leaned his head back, chin pointed up, and breathed deep. He opened his eyes fully now and he could see black piping snaking beneath a white-tiled ceiling. A blur of orange swung in and out of his field of vision like a pendulum, and he followed it, moving his head like a spectator at a tennis match. His body shuddered when he realized what it was.

It had been a pretty thing, once, he thought. The fur was long and looked soft. Two of the feet were white, as was the exposed belly. The ears were big and the whiskers long. The tongue that lolled from the open mouth was pinkish-gray and the eyes that stared at him, the death stare he had come to know so well, were green. It surprised him that in death the eyes looked so human-like, so similar to the eyes he had seen in Doc Robbins' morgue from other strangulation victims. And that's what it was, really, a victim. One end of the white cord was wound tight around its neck, the other tied in a series of knots to one of the black pipes below the ceiling. And it was swaying back and forth, as if someone had pushed it, like a child on a swing.

He heard a guttural groan and looked down from the cat. _What the hell?_ Was he witnessing a rape? His voice was hoarse, barely audible, even as he shouted.

"Get off of her!"

A naked woman was slumped in a chair, her legs spread, and between them was a man, pants down around his ankles, hands encased in latex gloves. He made no response to Nick, fully engrossed in his efforts. Nick tried to rise from the chair, his only thought to pull the bastard off of her. But the chair legs only scraped against the cement floor, and Nick realized, finally, that he was bound to the metal-framed chair. His forearms were secured with duct tape to each arm of the chair. His legs were bound together, also with tape, just above the ankles. His socks had been rolled down and the tape was on bare skin, tight. He had nothing but his voice.

"You son of a bitch! Get off of her!" His voice was stronger now and the man reacted to it. With a final moan he pulled out of the woman and backed off of her. He turned to the wall and Nick knew he was removing a condom. He tried to see where he put it, knew that it held information he was desperate to have, but his view was blocked by the man's body. He heard a zipper go up.

Nick turned his attention away from the man to the woman in the chair. What he saw made him gag and for a long moment he thought he was going to vomit. He struggled to swallow back the bile, and his eyes watered. She was dead. Her forearms, like his, were bound to the arms of the chair. A white cord, like the one used on the cat, was wound around her neck. Her eyes were green, like the cat. And like the cat, they stared blankly ahead. But what he had reacted to was the source of the copper smell. Her right breast was removed, and blood ran from the gory wound down her stomach and between her legs, pooling on the floor between her sprawled feet. A meter from the blood pool sat a neatly folded white terry towel. In the center, nestled carefully like a fragile prize, was the removed breast.

"Oh, fuck."

Nick hadn't meant to say it aloud, didn't even know he had said it. His head was swimming.

The man heard it, and he walked toward Nick and stood in front of him. Nick recognized him now. He was the guy who had the flat tire across the street. Nick had been on his way out of the house to his truck in the drive when a man with a tire iron in his hand had called him over.

"You look like you got some muscle to you," the man had said. "I can't get the lug nuts off." Nick could believe that. The guy was underweight even for his short stature, about five-eight, Nick figured. So Nick strode across the street to help and knelt down in front of the tire the man indicated. He was about to tell the man that it didn't look like a flat when something came down hard on the back of his head. The tire iron, he knew now. And he was out of it until he woke up here, in this chair, in this room that reeked of death, with a mutilated woman, a dead cat, and a deranged killer. A deranged killer Nick had witnessed sexually assaulting a corpse. Nick knew he was capable of anything.

"Did that excite you? Did I hear you say you wanted a turn at her?" The man's voice was mocking, and Nick looked at him straight on, his eyes hard. He didn't answer.

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? But you can't have her. You have enough with the whore you've got."

Nick's blood ran cold. For the first time he thought of Carrie. They had worked the day shift for the past two, since she had moved out of the hotel. Today they were to be back on nights, but they planned to take advantage of the full day in front of them before they had to go in. Yesterday Carrie had urged him to ask Warrick and Tina if they would come over for dinner. Warrick had joked with him and said he and Carrie were "playing house," but he said he would come, solo, since Tina would be at work.

Nick had chores to do, errands he needed to run, before the Cowboys game came on, and Carrie wanted to "do Vegas" before Warrick came. Nick had offered to go with her, uncomfortable about her being out alone if the killer really was stalking her. They had kept her visible, at Brass's request and with Carrie's consent. They had revisited dumpsites and homes of the two victims, but there was no indication the killer was watching her. Sofia would have known it if he were. She and a couple of uniforms were tailing Carrie, keeping her safe, but it seemed unnecessary, and they had backed off, at Carrie's urging, when the shift was over. So Nick had let her go, told her jokingly not to gamble away all her money or spend it at the Forum, and she promised to be back, wealthy or poor, in time to make a dinner for the two of them and Warrick.

He had left a few hours after that, or had intended to, anyway. He had never made it to his truck. What would she think, he wondered, when she saw the truck but couldn't find him? Or maybe she'd never make it back to the house. Did that bastard have her now, locked away someplace? Damnit. He never should have let her go by herself.

The man was watching his reaction. "Worried about her? Not as much as she's going to be about you in an hour or so, I'd guess. Oh, she'll know by then that something very unpleasant is going to happen to you. They all will. Everyone at that crime lab will be in quite a panic soon, especially her."

Nick looked at him questioningly, and the man smiled slyly. "I sent them a little something, is all. Missing anything?"

Nick looked down, checking. His first instinct was to check his right flank, but he hadn't been packing when he left his house. His gun was still in his locker at the lab. He'd had his wallet in his back pocket and his cell phone on his belt. The phone was gone and he assumed the wallet was, too. His keys had been in his hand when he was summoned to cross the street, and those were now gone. He hadn't had much else on him, just a pocketknife and some bubble gum that he had stuffed into a front pocket of his jeans. He could see the faint outline of both and was careful to hide his surprise that the man had not searched his front pockets. He had been wearing his watch and still was. His ring was…

The man nodded in confirmation as Nick saw that the ring finger on his right hand was bare.

"Took it while you were out. Made a little stop and had it sent off. You never even moved. Told them to deliver it at 4:30, which is in about fifty minutes. Had it sent to her, along with an invitation to join you."

Nick felt his cheeks grow hot and his anger rise. He tried to tamp it down and think. The killer expected Carrie to be at the lab. He probably thought that's where Nick was headed, too, when he left the house. So, the killer _had_ been watching her. He had seen her work days and expected her to again. Had he watched her leave the house, so certain that he knew where she was going that he didn't follow? Instead, he had waited for Nick. Nick hoped this would be the mistake that kept Carrie out of his reach. If the message to Carrie was intercepted at the lab, he knew without a doubt that Brass and Sofia would keep her safe. If they could find her. He knew they had her cell number. Would they reach her in time to give her sanctuary? He didn't know what was in store for him, but what mattered most was that Carrie wasn't a part of it.

The killer held out a thin, pale wrist and looked at his watch. Nick saw his demeanor change. His washed-out blue eyes lost their coldness and looked startled. When he spoke, it was in an uncertain, faltering voice, as if to himself.

"Shit, oh, shit," he mumbled. "Not much time left. She'll be back at the house soon. Have to finish here."

He left Nick and went back to the body. The room was some sort of workspace, and workbenches with large surfaces atop and cupboards underneath lined most walls. He opened a cupboard door beneath the workbench nearest to the body and drew out a large white terry towel. He took out several more towels and shook them out, then refolded them with care, as if he had just taken them from the dryer and was preparing to put them away. Nick watched intently, realizing he was witnessing a ritual, repeated actions the killer had done at least fifteen times before. The killer placed the towels over the blood pool on the floor and eventually had four white squares covering the blood, each abutting the other, edges expertly aligned, the four forming a larger, perfect square. It was all very tidy, and Nick remembered Carrie saying that the killer probably had OCD to some degree. To a large degree, Nick thought.

When the last towel was placed, the man looked at his watch, as if timing something. Nick looked at his too, and timed with him. At exactly three minutes, the man picked up the edge of a towel and carefully flipped it over, white turning to red. He did the same to the others, again carefully aligning the edges. When all the squares had been flipped to red, he again looked to his watch. At three minutes and not a second later, he took a white plastic 13-gallon garbage bag from the cupboard and deposited the towels into it, one at a time.

The man took out a pocketknife from the front pocket of his tan cotton pants and cut the tape away from the wrists of the body. He pulled the tape free and dropped the pieces into the white sack. He caught the body as it began to slump to the ground, and his pants and shirt became stained with blood. Nick realized the mutilation of the body had been very recent, probably just before he had assaulted her. And judging from the flow of blood, and lack of rigidity, her death had been recent as well. Nick wondered if he had been in the room, unconscious in the chair, when she had been carved up. Maybe she had even been killed, right here in front of him, and he had never known it. The cat was still swinging, wasn't it?

Nick tried to piece together a timeline. Most of the women had been taken from their homes after they had finished work one day and before they started the next. The killer always took them the day after he dumped the previous body, Carrie had said. They had found the last victim three days ago, so this one was taken, what, two days ago? Had she been here, terrified for two days while the killer went about his "normal" life? Carrie had said that it would have been important for him to maintain his established routines, and she was certain he held a job with bankers' hours._ Motherfucker waited for a Sunday to knock me out_, Nick thought bitterly.

He watched the killer lower the body to the floor. Nick looked at her, at the wound in her chest, and then looked up once more to the orange cat, the swinging of the cord slowed. Carrie had said the killer would be sexually dysfunctional, that he would need violence for arousal. Is that what the cats were for? Did he strangle them while the victims were alive, making them watch, listening to them beg for them, getting off on their pleas for mercy? Did he strangle the women even as they were watching their beloved pets struggle for breath? Did he slice up the women as soon as they died to achieve further arousal, so he could do to them after death what he was unable to accomplish while they were alive?

Was Carrie right about the removed breasts as well? He remembered what she had told them about Ted Bundy and the decapitated heads, and he shuddered in revulsion, thinking of the killer in a room fondling the removed tissue while he pleasured himself. Even now, the man tended to the mound of flesh on the snowy towel. He removed a gallon-size zip-lock freezer bag from the cupboard and gently, almost reverently, picked up the breast. He placed it in the bag and slid his fingers along the seal, blue and yellow lines turning to green. Nick wondered if he was really going to place it in his freezer, just put it in there next to the frozen bag of corn and the hamburger patties. Jesus, he was a sick fuck.

The killer set the clear bag on the workbench counter, next to a box of latex disposable gloves and a pile of clothing. The victim's clothing, Nick realized. The man picked up the towel the breast had been on and refolded it so no red was showing. He placed it on the body, over the hole in the chest. He pressed down on it, watching it, mesmerized almost, Nick thought, as it soaked up liquid and turned slowly to red. When it could hold no more, he deposited it into the white garbage bag that held the others. He took a final towel out of the space underneath the workbench and used it to wipe the blood from the body. He did so gently, as if drying a child after a bath. And he was very thorough, Nick noticed. When he was finished, there were only a few red smears that the too-wet towel had left. This towel went into the garbage bag, too, as Nick had known it would.

The man turned his attention to a roll of plastic sheeting that was propped up against the wall in the nearest corner. He dragged it over to the body and started to unroll it. He stopped suddenly and looked at his watch and swore. He rerolled the sheeting and put the roll back in the corner. He was done cleaning now, and he took off his latex gloves and threw them in the garbage bag. He took a new pair from the box and put them on before he began to undress. He emptied his pockets and then stripped down completely, even shoes and socks. Now that he was nude before him, Nick could see how underdeveloped he was, and he didn't just mean his lack of muscles. Nick looked away quickly, afraid of incurring the killer's wrath if he thought he was being watched. But the man took no note of Nick. In fact, he had given no indication that he was even aware Nick was in the room since he had turned his attention to the body and the mess it had made.

There was a black duffel bag on the floor and the man unzipped it. He took out a change of clothing and began to dress. White Hanes briefs, brown socks, tan pants like the ones he had worn before, light brown long-sleeved button-down shirt. These were followed by brown suede shoes that looked new, with laces yet to be poked into eyelets. The new shoes would explain why no one ever found shoeprints in common at any of the homes or dumpsites, Nick realized. He watched as the slight man laced the shoes before putting them on his feet and tying the bows into knots, the way Nick's mom used to do for his tennis shoes when he was little, so they wouldn't come untied. He was meticulous, smoothing out wrinkles in the trousers after he had placed his pocket knife and a few other items into a front pocket, making sure the shirt was carefully tucked in, the buttons aligned exactly down the center. When he was done, he looked like anybody else, pretty much, Nick thought. A little on the short and scrawny side, but not bad looking. Not good looking, either. Just ordinary. Pale blue eyes, light brown hair cropped neatly above small ears. No distinguishing marks. In his mid-to-late-thirties, Nick figured.

The man reached into the cupboard one last time and took out another 13-gallon bag. He left the pile of clothing and the clear zip-lock bag on the surface, but he put back the box of gloves. He took out a bottle of cheaper whiskey, Jim Beam Rye. Nick watched as the killer tilted his head back and dribbled the liquid into his waiting mouth, his lips never touching the bottle. Nick shook his head in wonder. There was nothing that the man had done since Nick had been watching him that would leave any DNA behind, save the used condom, and Nick was sure he'd dispose of that. Carrie had said he'd have familiarity with evidence collection and forensics, and she was right. She was right about a lot of things. What was it she had said about the killer? That she knew him, that she was inside his head. It was a hell of a place to be, and Nick felt a sudden swell of empathy and respect for her and her profession.

The killer capped the bottle and put it back in the cupboard, then closed the door. He gingerly picked up his discarded clothing and shoes, putting them an item at a time into the new bag, holding them the way Nick did dirty diapers when he was reluctantly pressed into diaper duty for his newest niece when he went back home. The killer picked one final item off the floor and pinched it between fingers, putting this one into the first bag with the towels. The spent condom, probably, Nick speculated. He closed up both bags by knotting the ends and then put the bags in the duffel bag. He lifted the zip-lock bag off the workbench and put that in last, then zipped up the duffel. He picked up the black nylon bag and walked over to the other side of the room to stand in front of Nick.

"It's time," he announced. "Soon your whore will see what I sent her. She'll call you, get no answer. She'll rush to your house, hoping beyond hope that you're there. But she'll see you soon enough. With the others, I watched them when I hurt what mattered to them. But not with her. I should have. I will, this time."

There was a front zipper pocket on the duffel and he opened it up and withdrew a black handgun, a nine-millimeter. He waved it in front of Nick's face.

"It's not going to be easy. The cops will be with her, protecting her. But I'll figure it out. The hunt is part of the sport, right? I knew how to get the others, and I'll get her, too."

Nick said nothing. It didn't seem reasonable to try to speak to a mentally ill serial killer who was waving a gun in front of him. But he knew his jaw was clenched, his face was flushed, his anger visible.

"And there's not a damn thing you can do about it," the man told him. He turned to the door. It was behind Nick, and Nick couldn't see it, couldn't twist his neck enough. But he heard what sounded like a padlock being unlocked and then a heavy door, metal, maybe, opening. He heard the door shut, heard what sounded like a bar being lowered across it, another padlock being snapped closed on the outside of the door. Nick still had no idea where he was beyond a fairly large room with a cement floor and cinderblock walls, no windows and one door. He realized the man had padlocked it from the inside to keep others out while he was occupying it, and now he had locked it from the outside to keep Nick in.

For the first time, Nick could test the strength of his binds. He tried to lift his arms away from the gray-padded metal arms of the chair. He held and then blew out breath and the veins in his neck bulged with effort, but nothing budged. The tape was wound tight, many times around. His fingers had long ago begun to go numb, and he wiggled them, trying to get back circulation. He tried to separate his feet, but they, too, were too tightly bound, the strong tape wound too many times.

Nick remembered the sound of the chair scraping across the floor earlier, when he had seen what that bastard was doing to the victim. He tried to move it now, wanted to face the door. He knew he couldn't get out of it, but at least if he was turned toward the door he could see what was coming at him when the killer came back. And he wouldn't have to keep looking at that damn cat and that poor, mutilated girl.

He found he could move the chair about half an inch at a time if he braced his feet flat on the floor and swiveled shoulders, hips, and knees with as much force as he could muster to the right. It was hard work, and it took time. But he had nothing else to do. And doing something, anything, felt better than just waiting. He was sweating by the time the chair faced the door. But he wasn't done yet. Now he scooted closer to the door, which was easier than rotating the chair, but he was tired now and it took rests between each propulsion forward to get the chair close enough to the door so his feet could easily reach it.

Nick sat in the chair and rested, regaining his strength. He eyed the door. It was gray metal with a knob that held a keyhole. Nick was sure he was in a building that had been abandoned and that the key to the door had long since been of no consequence. Instead, there was a heavy padlock, that, when locked into place, would hold together two steel fasteners, one on the door, the other on the frame. Installed by the killer, he was sure.

Nick thought about the planning that the killer had put into this room. Drilling the holes in the door to install the fasteners; stocking his "supply cabinet," as Nick had come to think of the cupboard under the workbench by the body; bringing in the cot that Nick saw against one of the walls; and most of all, setting up a generator to keep the lights on. Nick could hear its steady hum through the walls. Wherever this place was, no one came around much. No one to see the killer coming and going, as he must have done with frequency. No one to notice the generator outside of an unused building. And no one to notice a hostage inside.

Nick was ready now. He leaned his body back in the chair and drew in his knees. He took one more look at the door, as if sighting it in. And then in one swift, forceful motion, he kicked out with his legs and kicked hard at the door with his feet. He almost fell backward in the chair when he did it, and his heart skipped a beat as he righted himself. If he were to fall over in the damn chair he'd be on the cement floundering like a turtle on its back with no way of righting itself. It was stupid, the kick at the door, and he had known it even before he had attempted it. The rubber soles of his shoes had not even dented it, and the force he could muster from a seated position was negligible. He'd broken down doors before, albeit not metal ones, but always with a running start and always by putting his entire body into it before ramming it with his shoulder. This was foolishness, and he had to admit it. But at least he had tried it. He'd be damned if he was going to be locked in a room without trying to break down the door.

Now he really did have nothing to do but wait. His head was pounding and he was so tired. It had been almost five hours since he had crossed the street from his house, Good Samaritan that he was, to help out with a flat tire. It scared him that he had lost all of that time. He couldn't feel the back of his head, but he was pretty sure there was a good-sized lump. He hoped that he had drifted in and out of consciousness during those hours instead of being out completely. He had a notion that it couldn't be good for the inner workings of his head to have been unconscious for five hours. Probably wouldn't be good to fall asleep now, either. But he closed his eyes anyway and let darkness surround him. He breathed heavily and sank deeper into it, and in minutes he was lost to it completely.


	12. Chapter 12

Carrie balanced the bag of groceries on her hip and jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. She had parked in the driveway right next to Nick's truck, so she was sure he was home. She rang the doorbell, and when he didn't come, she banged impatiently on the door.

"Nick! A little help here. Get the door!"

When he still didn't answer, Carrie set the groceries down with a sigh and reached into her shoulder bag for the key and the paper he had given her that had the security code on it. She figured he had gone for a run after the game and she hoped she could at least get started on the dinner before he got back or Warrick arrived. She was running later than she wanted to be, but it had been hard to tear away from the otherworldly glitter of the Strip and call it a day.

It had been a sparkling fall day, warm for early November. She had delighted in going in and out of the lobbies of the big hotels, checking out the chandeliers and flowers, the tiles on the floors, the fixtures in the restrooms. She had walked the shops, the Forum at Caesars and the Grand Canal at the Venetian. She bought some earrings at one of the Venetian shops, pretty Austrian crystal that she knew she paid too much for and didn't care. Then, feeling extravagant, she had gone on a gondola ride down the canal. It would have been more fun with Nick, but if he had been there they wouldn't have done it anyway.

Ever since their commitment a few days ago to "be careful," they had an unspoken agreement that there would be sex but nothing beyond friendship outside of the bedroom. There would be no romance. It was a distinction that she was struggling with a bit as she found herself wanting to grab his hand when she stood by him, or let her fingers play in his thick, dark hair when she sat on the sofa next to him, or kiss him good-bye when they parted. She had a feeling he was having an equally difficult time, but so far they had managed. They both wanted to avoid an emotional farewell when she went back to Atlanta, and this was the way they had decided to do that, as unsatisfying, or ineffectual, as it seemed at times. It was either this or stay away from each other completely outside of work, and frankly neither one of them at this point was willing to give up the sex. They shouldn't have started it, maybe, but they had, and self-restraint only went so far. But Carrie tried, and she managed to keep her emotions in check and save her physical desire for his bed. And the physical desire was strong. Maybe after Warrick left she and Nick would have time for a quick…

She felt him before she saw him. A chill passed through her and her flesh contracted, the skin goosebumping on her arms and neck. Her heart pounded hard, once, and then seemed to stop for a beat or two, starting up again at what felt like twice its normal rhythm. Carrie was breathing hard, her fingers fumbling as she inserted the key in the slit in the doorknob. She huffed a sigh of relief as she heard the click of the lock releasing, and she simultaneously turned the knob and pushed open the door. It didn't open. Nick had the deadbolt locked as well, and this time she wasn't fast enough with the key.

"Unlock it," a man's voice said. "Then get inside."

Carrie could feel his breath on her neck, but more than that she could feel the hard steel of a gun digging into the center of her back. She didn't try to turn around to see who he was. She inserted the key and released the bolt, then pushed the door open. The man ordered her to remove the key, and then he shoved her roughly inside. She stumbled in the entryway, the key she held loosely in her hand and the purse on her shoulder falling to the floor. She regained her footing and found herself facing the gunman. He was a few inches shorter than she was, slightly built, with short brown hair and pale blue eyes. He was tidily dressed in pressed tan slacks and a button-down brown shirt. Slung over one shoulder was a zipped black bag, which he removed and set on the floor. He quickly pushed the door shut, hands gloved in latex, and once again faced his hostage. Carrie searched his face, hoping for a spark of recognition, but there was none. She had no idea of his identity, but she knew well enough who he was. She was looking into the eyes of a serial killer.

A rhythmic tonal "beep" emanated from the white security panel next to the door, and both occupants of the room shifted their gazes to it. The man looked from it to Carrie, then held his gun higher and aimed at her head.

"Turn it off," he ordered.

Carrie shook her head. "I don't…I don't know how." Her fingers curled around the slip of paper she clutched in her hand. In truth, Nick had explained to her how to disarm it. She wasn't exactly clear about how it worked, though. She didn't know if it always beeped like that for a little bit, maybe a minute or two, until the buttons were pushed, didn't know at what point it would do what it was designed to do and the security company would be notified that something was amiss at the Stokes residence. She did know that the longer it beeped, the better shot she had that someone would be alerted. So she just stood, silently, looking helpless.

The man glared at her, pale eyes hard with anger. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against her temple and with his other hand pried apart her fingers that held the security code. He had been watching her, had been in wait for her when she arrived, had seen her take the paper from her purse and hold it in her hand. He took it from her and held it out in front of her face.

"Lying bitch. You don't want to lie to me again, bitch." He pressed the paper back into her hand. "Disarm it. Now."

Everything disappeared for Carrie except for the feel of the cold steel against the side of her head. It bit into her flesh, and she had a terrifying, paralyzing vision of a bullet entering her skull, splattering out her brains against the slate blue of Nick's living room wall. She breathed hard and fast, and she could feel her head pulsing against the muzzle of the gun.

"Now, damnit!"

Carrie forced herself to look down at the paper in her hand. The numbers swam, and she closed her eyes tight and then opened them again. Her fingers punched the numbers on the panel and the beeping stopped. The paper fluttered to the floor. She cocked her head, surprised that the sound was no longer there. She had turned it off but had no recollection of doing so. But the fact that she _had_ done it calmed her. She could still function, could still react. And she wouldn't be alone with him for long. Nick was bound to be back from his run soon, and she expected Warrick to arrive at any time. The man in front of her may have a gun, but Warrick and Nick would know what to do. All she had to do was stay alive until they got here.

She was still struggling to place the gunman, still coming up with nothing. She could tell by the force in which he pressed the gun into her skin, by the way he had talked to her, that he detested her. She just didn't know why. Usually when she became the object of people's wrath it was because she had testified against them in court, had revealed her findings after their court-ordered sessions. They didn't always like what she had to say, and more than once she had been on the receiving end of screamed obscenities in court, had been threatened, even. But no one had ever taken the threats beyond the courtroom. Until now. Damn, she wished she could place him. But she couldn't.

Carrie looked at him levelly, tried to keep her voice calm, conversational. "We, uh, have met before?"

He didn't answer, seemed distracted. He backed up to the front window, still pointing the gun at her, but turned away from her long enough to look out at the street. None of this was the way he had envisioned it. She had come to the house casually, lugging a bag of groceries. The panic he expected to see in her, was looking forward to seeing in her, wasn't there when she got out of her car. She had been alone, which made it easy for him, but he didn't necessarily want it easy with her. And she still hadn't asked the question he was certain she would ask, was waiting for her to ask. He asked her one instead.

"Where's the cop?"

Carrie looked at him uncertainly. "The cop?"

"The blonde. The female cop that's been sticking to you like glue these past few days."

The confirmation that he had indeed been watching her was unnerving, but Carrie concentrated on not revealing any emotion in her voice. "I don't know. I haven't seen her since yesterday."

He looked at his watch. "Where were you half-an-hour ago? At 4:30, where were you?"

So, he hadn't been watching her all the time. She answered him honestly, didn't see a reason not to. "At the grocery store. The Safeway near here."

He frowned. "You never got it," he said lowly, disappointment evident in his voice.

"Got…what?"

He started to answer but stopped short when he heard a vehicle door open and close. He looked out the window again. It was the partner, the black guy, and he was walking up to the door. The doorbell rang. With two cars sitting in the driveway, chances were he wasn't going to go away just because someone didn't answer the door. He put the gun to Carrie's head once again. "Get rid of him. Don't try anything, or I pull this trigger. I kill him, then I kill you."

Carrie hesitated. She didn't want to be alone with this madman, but her earlier conviction that Warrick and Nick could help was replaced by fear for them, fear of what he could so easily do to them with the gun he held. He had killed at least fourteen times. More wouldn't make any difference to him. The doorbell rang again and Carrie jumped in spite of herself.

"Answer it." The man stepped aside, hidden behind the door that Carrie pulled open. Warrick was standing on the stoop, the bag of forgotten groceries in his arms.

"Hey, girl," Warrick said cheerfully, "you think you might need these?"

Carrie was careful not to meet his eyes. She looked at the sack of groceries. She had asked for paper, as she always did, and she stared at the curves of the red 'S' on the brown bag, willing herself to sound normal, praying that she did. She knew with certainty now that she didn't want Warrick involved in this, whatever _this_ was.

"Thanks. My hands were full. Had to set them down to get in the house. I was just about to come back out for them."

Warrick smiled. "Get that lazy bum in there to get his ass off the couch and away from the football game long enough to help you."

Warrick tried to peer inside, but Carrie blocked his view. "That's just it," Carrie explained. "He can't."

Warrick looked at her in concern, but she still was not meeting his eyes. "He sick?"

Carrie shook her head and tried to pull off a laugh. "No. Plastered. He had too many beers while the games were on, I think."

"Uh-oh. Grissom's not going to like that. Let's see if we can't get him sober by the time shift starts. Maybe I could…" He tried once again to see inside, but Carrie was planted there, not moving. She held out her arms for the groceries.

"We both don't need to baby-sit him. I'm really sorry, Warrick, but I don't much feel like making a nice dinner now, with Nick, well…acting like a drunken idiot. Can we do a raincheck? I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Her voice quavered as she spoke the last two words, and he looked at her critically. She looked back at him, finally, and he could see both the fear and the pleading in her eyes. She still would not move from the doorway, but he saw her purse, the door key, a white slip of paper, and an unfamiliar black leather bag on the tiled floor of the entryway. He looked at her again, this time with a trained investigator's eye. There it was, unmistakable now that he was looking for it. The muzzle stamp, red against the pale skin next to her hairline. In one swift movement he let the groceries drop to the cement and shoved past her into the room, at the same time reaching instinctively for his hip. The grab was futile. His weapon was back at the lab, in his locker. He heard a yelp from Carrie and froze, afraid any movement on his part would cause the gun that was being held to her head to become deadly. A man was behind her, a hand wrapped around her slender neck, pressing against her throat so hard that she gasped for breath. The other hand held the gun, and it was once again pressed against her temple.

Warrick chanced speech. "She can't breathe. Let go of her."

The man looked at him coolly. "Maybe. If you do what I tell you to." The arrival of the partner was an unexpected, and at first, unwelcome, surprise. But the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this could be to his advantage. He had wondered how he was going to get the bitch to cooperate, how he was going to hold a gun to her head and at the same time bind her wrists and transport her. He had syringes in the black bag, of course, but he only wanted to use that as a last resort. He knew well enough what the injection did, and while the effects were what he had desired for his previous victims, he wanted this one aware at all times. He wanted to see her breathe hard with panic, her breasts rising and falling enticingly with each intake of air, the way they had done earlier when he held the gun to her head. He wanted to hear her struggle for each breath, the way she was now, wanted to see the fear in her eyes, the fear seeming to make her eyes change color, from hazel to a sort of grayish-green, and back again. He didn't want to miss a thing. Not one thing. And now he didn't have to.

"Shut the door and lock it," he told Warrick. "And close the blinds."

Warrick did as he was commanded, moving deliberately and keeping a watchful eye on Carrie, his concern for her growing as her face reddened and she sputtered for breath.

The man jerked his head at the bag on the floor. "Unzip it and put your cell phone and keys in there. Empty out your pockets and put whatever else you have in there, too."

Warrick opened the bag. He took the cell phone off of his belt and dropped it in. He took his keys and wallet out of his pockets and dropped those in, too. He turned the pockets inside out so that the gunman could see that they were empty. He wasn't wearing a jacket, but he untucked his shirt and lifted it up, as well as the sleeveless tee underneath, proof that he wasn't packing. But that had been obvious from the start. The man nodded his approval.

"Inside the bag you'll find lengths of cord. Get out one of 'em."

Carrie wasn't struggling anymore. Warrick could see her eyes roll back, could see her body go limp and slump forward, prevented from slipping to the floor by the man's grip, still firm around her.

"Let go of her _now_!"

Warrick's voice was deep baritone, and it had a formidable bass rumble when he shouted in anger, as he did now. The man reacted to it, and his hand fell away from Carrie's neck. She began to slide to the floor, but he caught her and supported her, the gun held carelessly in his right hand as his left cupped and pressed against her breast. He was distracted enough that Warrick could have made a move on him, but Warrick was distracted, too. Too distracted to notice the opportunity. Warrick was watching Carrie anxiously to see if she would regain consciousness, ready to do whatever he had to do to revive her, no matter what that bastard did to him because of it.

He didn't need to do anything. With her airway freed from obstruction, Carrie's breath came again in deep gulps for oxygen, and her eyes fluttered open. Without thought she brought her hands up and put them on the man's wrist, trying to get his groping fingers off of her breast. His only reaction was to once again hold the muzzle of the gun against her temple. His fingers kneaded harder, the unyielding steel of the gun dug deeper. Carrie brought her hands back down and froze, remaining motionless even as his inquisitive hand found its way under her blouse, even as he pressed his body against her, even as Warrick took a step forward, his green eyes blazing with fury. She met his eyes and shook her head almost imperceptibly. _It doesn't matter_, she told him silently. _Nothing he does to me matters as long as a bullet doesn't go into my head._

Warrick heard the click, the recognizable sound of the gun being cocked, and he, too, froze in place.

"You move another inch, and I pull this trigger. First her, then you."

There was nothing in Carrie's eyes now but pure terror, and Warrick watched her helplessly. The man's hand roamed under the soft blue fabric of her shirt, under the laced cup of her bra, and he groaned as he gyrated against her, excited by his control of her, by her submission, by the heave of her chest, by the smell of the fear pulsing off of her.

Warrick knew he couldn't move, knew he couldn't say anything remotely antagonistic. But he could ask the question that he had wanted to ask, had been afraid to ask, since he had entered the room. He could ask the question that he knew would refocus them both.

"Where's Nick?"

His query had the desired effect. Carrie had closed her eyes, but she opened them now and looked at Warrick. Most importantly, her aggressor stopped moving against her. He removed his hand from under her blouse and pulled away from her a step, although he still held the gun to her head. He was watching her reaction to Warrick's question carefully.

"Answer him."

"He went…" Carrie's voice shook and she fought to control it, to not think of the gun that was biting into the thin skin on the side of her head. "He went for a run."

Her response drew outrage from the gunman. He screamed at her, and she could feel his spittle hitting her face.

"Is that what you think? He went for a fucking _run_? You're such a stupid bitch! You're so fucking _stupid_!"

Carrie flinched and she once again squeezed shut her eyes. Warrick could see the tears spilling from beneath the closed lids. He could see her body trembling. He had used his voice once to deescalate this bastard, and he hoped he could do it again.

"Enough!" Warrick barked. As before, the man responded. He removed the gun from Carrie's temple and instead stood in front of her and pointed it at her face. She still had not opened her eyes. Warrick wasn't sure she had put the pieces together yet, but he had. Nick wasn't out for a run, and Nick wasn't coming back here. He struggled to keep his voice level, casual, even.

"You kill him?"

Carrie opened her eyes wide, the pupils dilating in horror as reality hit. A sob escaped her. The man laughed appreciatively. "That's more like it. That's what I was waiting for." He looked at Warrick, took his time in answering.

"Not yet. Not without her watching it happen. You can watch, too. Bonus."

Warrick glared at him. "Where is he?"

The man waved the gun dismissively at Warrick. "Enough questions. Get the cord out of the bag like I told you to. Give it to her."

Warrick knelt by the open bag and peered inside. He could see his cell phone, keys, and wallet that he had been ordered to drop in. There were a couple of strips of black cloth, several two-foot lengths of white nylon cording, a zip-lock sandwich bag that held two syringes, each filled with liquid. There were a couple cans of tuna fish. There was even a can opener. He realized with a jolt that this was the bag of supplies that the killer took to the homes of his victims.

Warrick's mind raced. The killer was watching him closely, and the gun was now on him and not on Carrie, although he had an arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Carrie was crying, and Warrick could tell that she was trying hard not to, but every now and again he could hear a soft sob. Each time she made the sound, the man glanced at her and grinned. Warrick studied the small bag that contained the syringes. If he timed it, he could grab it in the instant that the man's attention was on Carrie and not on him. Maybe he could sneak it into his pocket. His hand reached for it and began to draw it out of the bag.

"What the hell are you doing in there? Get the cord out, damnit!"

Reluctantly, Warrick let the plastic bag fall back into place and took out one of the lengths of cord. If he had managed to get a syringe, he couldn't have used it here, anyway. What the hell had he been thinking? Yeah, he might be able to make a move on this guy. He was a lot taller and he sure as hell outweighed him. All it would take was a minute, a second, of inattentiveness from that son of a bitch and he'd have him. But then he'd never know where Nick was. He was Nick's best chance and he knew it.

He was fairly certain now that Carrie wasn't going to be killed in this room. She had been terrorized, and Warrick could see that her tormentor was satisfied with that for the moment. Warrick knew he had much more in store for her, but it would happen when she was reunited with Nick. So she was relatively safe for now. But he wasn't. There was no reason to let him live, and with the gun pointed at him now and not at Carrie he knew the killer had switched focus. One stupid move on his part, and he was dead. And so was Nick. It went against everything that he was, everything inside of him that wanted to take that fucker down, but Warrick vowed to himself that he would be compliant. He would get to Nick.

And so he was obedient and calm when he handed the cord to Carrie, when he put his hands behind his back, when he crossed his wrists as ordered, when Carrie wound the cord around them, over and over, pulling taut only when the gun was pressed against Warrick's temple this time, when she made a knot so tight he winced in spite of himself. He watched Carrie impassively as the gun was held to his head and Carrie followed the orders given to her: pick up the purse and put it in the bag; pick the keys and paper up off the floor; open the blinds back up; set the security alarm and no funny business or there's going to be pieces of black skull all over this room.

And then the gun was pressed into his back and he was shoved out the door that Carrie had opened. She followed, the bag slung on her shoulder, and pulled the door shut behind her. As ordered, she turned the key both in the doorknob and the deadbolt, locking it tight. She put the key and paper into the bag, zipped it up, and started to hand it off to the killer, but he ordered her to carry it in front of her, with both hands.

In unison, the three of them scanned the neighborhood. There were no cars coming down the street, no one out for a Sunday stroll, no one having a beer on the stoop of a house. Carrie and Warrick looked grim, but the man smiled. He looked at Carrie.

"Walk beside him, not in front of him. And keep both hands on the bag. You make any noise, you do anything to draw attention, and this gun I have in his back goes off. I kill him, I kill you, and I kill whoever comes out to see what all the fuss is about. You understand that?"

Carrie nodded silently and began to walk alongside Warrick, who was being pushed down the walk and then to the sidewalk, moving toward the house next door. Warrick knew who lived there, a retired couple who spent most of their time tooling around the countryside in their RV. The RV wasn't on its pad beside the house, but a white Honda Odyssey was. Warrick eyed the van critically. It was a newer model with Nevada plates. He stared hard at the plate, trying to commit the letters and numbers to memory. He felt the hard muzzle of the gun dig into his back and he was pushed roughly forward.

"It's not going to matter. You're not going to live long enough to run the plates."

They stopped alongside the van, and the man spoke to Carrie. "Drop the bag. Open it up and get out the two pieces of cloth and the rest of the cord."

Carrie silently obeyed. She retrieved the items and held them out to him. He shook his head and looked around. They were in the covered RV port of the neighbor's lot, and there still was no one in view.

"Tie the cloth over his eyes."

Carrie hesitated, but Warrick bent obligingly so she would not have to reach.

"Do whatever he tells you to do, Carrie," Warrick said lowly. He knew what she didn't seem to fully grasp yet—that he was Nick's best hope, that there was no reason for the killer to keep him alive, that any false move on his part, or hers, and he was dead. He just wanted to get to Nick. Bound, blindfolded, drugged if that was the bastard's next move. It didn't matter. He just needed to stay alive.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes:** This one's rough. Rough language. Rough treatment of…oh, heck, you know who. This chapter earns its rating.

* * *

Warrick concentrated on keeping his muscles loose, letting his body sway with each turn of the vehicle, letting himself feel each bump in the road. It was pretty much pointless, though. He could never seem to get himself oriented. Just when he thought he had it, thought he knew north from south, there would be a sharp turn, and then another, and everything felt all topsy-turvy again. He had ended up on the floor in the back of the van, next to the collapsed wheelchair. Carrie had been ordered to bind his ankles together with the cord, and he couldn't manage to get himself upright. With the total darkness from his blindfold, and his fetal position on the floor, the ride was a dizzying roller coaster-like experience, and he finally gave up on trying to pinpoint where he was. 

Carrie was on the floor as well, wedged between the front and rear passenger seats, also blindfolded and bound at wrists and ankles. They didn't try to communicate with each other, but every now and then he could hear what sounded like a muffled sob, and he knew she was trying her best to hold it together, to not let it go. He heard her let out a huff of held breath when the Odyssey slowed and then rolled to a stop on a crunch of gravel. He heard the metallic click of the seatbelt release and the driver's door open and close. Footsteps on chipped stone, the passenger door sliding open, a pause, an impatient command.

"Get out."

The order was for Carrie, and Warrick heard her struggle as she tried to get off the floor and out of the van. She must have stumbled.

"Clumsy bitch. Stay there."

And then the back hatch opened and Warrick heard his captor hoist himself in. Hands gripped his ankles, there was a tug of cord, and his binding was freed. Warrick cocked his head, heard the blade of the pocket knife snap back into its handle.

"Climb on out of there."

Warrick propelled himself forward on his knees, no way to grope for purchase with his hands still bound behind him. He collided with the chair, skirted it, and tentatively inched on until he felt the floor disappear beneath a knee, and he lowered his legs over and jumped down. Rough hands grabbed him by the shoulders and positioned him next to Carrie. He was so close to her he could feel her trembling. He sensed they were alone for the moment, and he chanced a whisper to her.

"It's okay. We're where we want to be. He's taken us to Nick. You still blindfolded?"

Carrie nodded but then realized he couldn't see her affirmation. "Yes, but my legs are free. My hands are bound, though."

"Behind you or in front?"

"Front. He…"

"Shut it, unless you want to be gagged, too." The man grasped her wrists, and she could feel the slick plastic of his latex gloves. He guided her hands to Warrick's waist.

"Hang on to his belt."

Carried curled the fingers of both hands around the leather of Warrick's belt, just below his bound hands, and stepped forward when he moved. The man's voice guided Warrick forward, and Carrie wondered if a gun was held to his head, as it had been held to hers at Nick's.

"Stop. There's steps going down. A lot of 'em."

Carrie heard a door open and held tighter to Warrick as he put a foot out and felt for the first step. He moved slowly, cautiously, his body pressed against the rail along the wall, using it to guide him down. Carrie smelled the dankness of the space they were in, instantly felt the change of temperature. It was still fairly warm outside, even though she knew the late afternoon sun was low in the sky, but it was cold here, wherever "here" was. She shivered and focused on moving in tandem with Warrick.

"Last one."

Warrick stopped and Carrie did, too, one step above him. She could hear the jangle of keys, the click of a lock, padlock maybe, being opened, another click, and then, unexpectedly, the man was beside her, removing her blindfold. He removed Warrick's, too, and tossed both strips of cloth to the floor in front of the door before them.

"You're going to want to see what's on the other side of that door."

With sight restored, Carrie and Warrick both looked around, checking their bearings. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling of the landing provided a dim, yellow light. Behind them was the door they had entered at the top of the cement steps, maybe fifteen of them. In front of them was an industrial-looking gray steel door, opened slightly now that it was free of both the padlock and bar that had held it shut. There was another door, also slightly ajar, to the left of the first, but it was dark beyond it and no way to see inside.

The man stepped in front of Warrick and, with a flourish, opened the door he had just unlocked. His grin of triumph vanished as soon as he saw Nick, seated in his chair so close to the entrance that he was blocking it.

"Goddamnit! Goddamn son of a bitch!"

He started to lunge at Nick, but then held himself back and turned to Warrick. "Get in there. Her, too."

Warrick and Carrie stood rooted, staring at Nick taped to the chair, and he stared back. The three of them looked at each other in bewilderment.

The man was in the room, standing beside Nick. "Get the hell in here!"

Warrick moved forward and Carrie followed. Warrick looked critically at Nick. He was pale and haggard, his eyes bright. Those brown eyes were looking from Warrick to Carrie with a mixture of surprise and confusion. The pupils dilated when the man held his gun to Warrick's head.

"Grab that chair and drag it to the middle of the room, then face him away from the door." He looked pointedly at Nick. "And no more funny business out of you, or your partner here joins her." He jerked his head to the body on the other side of the room, and for the first time Warrick and Carrie took their eyes off Nick and saw the other occupants of the room. Saw the orange cat dangling from the pipe, saw the nude girl, cord around her neck, the right side of her chest a hollow of red. Carrie made a sound, part moan, part whimper, and brought her bound hands to her mouth. She paled and Warrick caught her eye and shook his head in warning. He knew that if Carrie showed terror here, their tormentor was going to feed off of it even more than he had before, that her terror would bring a reaction from Nick, and that was the show the killer wanted to direct. He diverted her attention from the gruesome scene against the wall.

"Help me with the chair." He stepped behind it and backed up to it, his bound hands reaching to grasp the steel frame of the back. Carrie took hold of the opposite side, easier for her with her hands in front of her, and the two of them pulled the chair to the center of the room, Nick helping the momentum by pushing off the floor with his feet at intervals. The man returned to the door and snapped shut a padlock, a match to the one on the opposite side.

"That's good enough."

Once again, Carrie, Nick, and Warrick looked at each other in silence, each with so many questions, none daring to ask in front of their unstable assailant.

"Well, isn't this cozy? One more than I planned on, but it's the surprises that keep things interesting, isn't it?

He addressed his question to Carrie and looked at her with a smirk. "You should know that. You've had quite an interesting time of it, haven't you?"

She remained silent and he reached out a hand to her. She drew back, but he only smiled. He touched the ends of her hair with a gloved hand. He saw Warrick step forward, heard a sputter of anger from Nick, and stopped both their reactions, like a freeze frame, by holding his gun to Carrie's head. One hand held the gun, the other fingered the ends of her hair. He reached for the tie that held it back.

Nick could see her now, really see her for the first time since she had entered the room. He saw the recognizable tattoo of the muzzle stamp, the bruised imprint of fingers on her throat. Emotion bested caution and Nick bucked in the chair, his eyes blazing. "Get your fucking hands off of her! Don't you touch her, you bastard!"

The man reeled on Nick, pointing the gun at his head. Warrick and Carrie drew in a simultaneous breath, held it. Their eyes never left Nick.

The gunman's voice was low and threatening. His entertainment had begun, and he was going to make the very most of it. "Do you think you're the only one who can touch her? Oh, I know. I know about you." He looked at Nick with complete disgust. "I know you had your filthy dick in her. I heard you, grunting like a pig and her moaning like a whore. I heard it all."

He smiled smugly when he saw Nick fail to hide his look of surprise. "I was there, you know. Outside your bedroom window. I heard it. Heard it all. I heard you fuck her for the past three nights. Twice that first night. And not just at night, either. You had her yesterday morning and this morning, too. Fucking animal. Fucking rutting pig. Can't keep your dick out of her."

Carrie gasped and he spun around, the gun now pointed at her. "Did you like it, whore? Did you like his cock in your cunt? I thought you were so pure. That's why she kept you away from me, so pure. But you're nothing but a whore. A cheap, moaning _whore_!"

Warrick was watching with increasing anxiety as the scene played out in front of him. He could hear the rising excitement in the gunman's voice, could see the dilated pupils. He could see the growing bulge between his legs. He remembered what Carrie had said about the perp using intimidation and violence to achieve arousal, and he knew the man's own obscene speech, likely forbidden to him in other circumstances, was contributing to his excitement. He saw Carrie's struggle once again to place him, to find the connection, but he could tell she was still coming up empty.

"We can talk about this," she said softly. "We can talk about when they kept you away from me." Her voice shook only a little, and the tone was gentle. "Put the gun down, and we can talk."

The man stepped closer to her, and his breath puffed against her cheek. She forced herself not to turn her head away. He had seen sheer terror in her when he held the cocked gun to her head at Nick's, but she wasn't going to give that to him here. She wasn't going to give him anything here in front of Nick.

His voice was shrill, quivering with anger. "You're a fucking bitch, you know that? You still have no idea who I am. Goddamn whore. I will _not_ put down the gun. Are you afraid? Afraid I might hurt your fucking pig?"

The gun trembled in his hand and he once again pointed it at Nick. Warrick moved forward without thinking, his initial action that of reaction. He stopped himself and put everything he had into being still, knew if he made a move now Nick was dead.

The man looked at Carrie once again, gun still aimed at Nick, his voice almost calm. "Do you remember what he sounded like on top of you?"

And then he pulled the trigger. For Warrick, all sounds came together to make one deafening roar. The reverberation of the shot, Carrie's scream, his own shouted obscenity, Nick's pain-filled yelp. Warrick's head swam, his ears pounded. He closed his eyes and drew in deep breaths, knew he had to stay calm. Only one thought repeated itself over and over. _Please don't be dead, Nicky, please don't be dead, please don't be dead._

"Shut the fuck up! He's not dead."

Warrick had not realized he had said the words aloud. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look at Nick. Brown, liquid eyes looked back at him, eyes filled with both anguish and surprise. There was a growing dark stain on Nick's left shoulder, slightly above and to the right of his armpit. Nick's eyes left Warrick's and he looked down at the stain, his face paling as he watched the olive cotton of his tee shirt turn dark with blood. He made no noise, but Warrick could see his chest rising and falling way too fast. Warrick moved toward him, but the instant he moved the gun was on him.

"You take one more step, and I shoot you, too."

Warrick froze and turned his eyes to Carrie. She was pale and trembling, and she, too, had moved toward Nick. The man stepped between her and Nick and waved the gun at her head.

"I asked you a question. What did I ask you?"

Carrie shook her head. "I don't…I don't know."

"Oh, yes, you do." His voice was wheedling. "Yes, you do, and you'd better answer. What did I ask you?"

Carrie fought to keep her voice steady, fought to meet his eyes. He was never going to see her scared again; whatever he did, she was not going to give him that power.

"You asked me," she said evenly, "if I remembered what he sounded like on top of me."

He smiled. "Very good. Would you like a reminder?"

He strode back over to Nick, holding the gun to his head with one hand and with the other grabbing his shirt. He put two fingers into the hole in the cotton and spread them apart, ripping wide the hole and exposing the bloodied wound in the shoulder. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the bleeding hole, smiling when Nick gasped. He pushed it hard and twisted it against and into the torn flesh. Nick moaned and Warrick felt hot hatred rise in him as he watched Nick's tormentor close his eyes and press himself against Nick. It was what he had done with Carrie earlier when they were at Nick's, Warrick realized. The sick bastard was getting off right in front of him, using his victim's pain and terror to escalate his excitement, and as with Carrie, Warrick couldn't do a damn thing about it but watch helplessly. The gun was pressed harder against Nick and Nick moaned again, this time the sound joined by the orgasmic groan of his aggressor. The man pulled the gun away from Nick, the muzzle tipped with blood, and moved back to stand in front of Carrie. His eyes were bright with pleasure, with triumph.

"Just like that," he said. "And just as loud. I could hear it through the closed window. Did it excite you? Would you like to hear it again, the moans of your rutting pig?"

Carrie looked him straight in the eye. "No," she said firmly, as if reprimanding a dog that had been disobedient.

He sighed. "Maybe later. You seemed to like the sound of it this morning."

He looked back at Nick, who was even paler now, top teeth pressed over lower lip, eyes shut tight, upper body rocking back and forth in pain against the back of the chair. He looked at Warrick, whose hazel eyes met his with undisguised hatred, and he looked abruptly away. He took a pocketknife out of his front pocket and opened the blade clumsily, unwilling to let loose his grasp on the gun. He held the knife against Carrie's throat. She stood silent and stock still, but a gasp escaped from Warrick. The man looked at him derisively and laughed.

"Relax, big man. I'm not going to do anything to her. Not yet, anyway. She has so much more to see."

He withdrew the knife and brought it down to Carrie's hands, slicing the cord that bound her wrists together. He folded the knife back up and put it back into his pocket. He moved to stand beside Nick, and Carrie watched him uncertainly. He nodded to her.

"Come. Come on. Go to him. Take care of him. He's bleeding like a…like a stuck pig."

He laughed loudly at the cleverness of his joke and stepped aside as Carrie hurried to take his place. He scanned the rest of the room, then moved away from the trio of Warrick, Carrie, and Nick to the mutilated body sprawled on the cement floor on the other side of the room. His step quickened and he began to mutter to himself. Warrick shot a questioning look at Carrie, and she held up a hand in warning. The guy might be distracted, but he still held a gun in his hand.

"She can't be here," he murmured. "Can't have her tainted by this. Too pure, too pure. Can't have her here with the pig."

He walked quickly to the corner nearest to the body and grabbed the roll of plastic sheeting propped against the wall. He set it next to the body. He heard a low groan of pain from Nick and glanced up. Carrie was standing behind Nick, pushing down the neck of Nick's shirt, trying to ease it off his shoulder so she could see the exit wound, not able to take it off him with his wrists taped to the arms of the chair. The gunman watched, fascinated, as Carrie's fingers slid under the fabric of the shirt. He moved away from the body, eager to watch, but then stopped and looked down at the corpse. He couldn't leave her here, couldn't leave her while the whore touched her pig. But it was too awkward to try to tend to her and still wield the gun.

He called to Warrick. "Get over here."

Warrick eyed him warily, but he crossed the room to stand in front of the body. The man reached into his front pocket and once again took out the pocketknife. He opened the blade and, as he had done with Carrie, deftly slit the cord that was binding Warrick's wrists.

"Wrap her up," the man ordered. "Get the cat down first, set it on top of her. Then wrap her up."

Warrick shook his head in disbelief. He had said nothing since Nick was shot, but he could hold back no longer. "I'm not cleaning up your fucking murder. No way."

Without warning, without preamble, the man pointed the gun at Nick, aimed low, and fired. Warrick saw it happen this time. Nick screamed and his legs shot out in front of him, bound together and moving in tandem, even though only one was hit. Immediately a wet dark circle appeared on the left leg of his blue jeans, over his shin, halfway between his ankle and knee. Carrie had recoiled at the shot and had fallen to the floor, and for several horrifying seconds Warrick thought that she, too, was shot, that the bullet had gotten them both. But she got up quickly and went to Nick, kneeling in front of him to check his wound.

The man turned back to Warrick. His voice was icy. "Is there anything else you want to say to me?" He aimed the gun back at Nick and pointed it right between his legs. "The next one shoots off his prick. So I suggest you don't do anything stupid. As you can see by now, I don't count to three first."

He chuckled at his humor and left Warrick to join Nick and Carrie. Carrie ignored his presence and pushed up the leg of Nick's jeans. There was a hole where the bullet had entered, but no exit wound on the other side. It was still in his leg. Blood was flowing from the wound, streaming down the leg, soaking his sock and finding its way into his shoe. She took off the sock and shoe, working awkwardly around his right leg, joined by the newly bloodied tape to his left. Their captor had said nothing so far, but she wasn't sure how far he'd let her go. She didn't dare try to undo the tape. Nick cried out each time she jostled his leg, and he had actually screamed when she lifted his leg to take off his sock and shoe. Her blood ran cold with each sound he made. With the shoulder wound, except when the gun was driven into the hole, he had been mostly stoically silent. But she could tell he had no control over this, and it scared her.

It scared Warrick, too. He looked over to Nick each time Nick moaned or cried out, but he knew he was powerless to help. The gunman was continually looking from Carrie to him, and he knew what would happen to Nick if he didn't do the job assigned to him. He took the metal-framed chair from beside the body, a match to the one Nick was in. He could feel the stickiness on the arms of it. He glanced down at the girl's wrists and saw the adhesive residue and knew she had been bound to the chair. There was a triangle of blood on the edge of the gray vinyl seat, centered, its point to the back of the chair. Warrick eyed it expertly and knew that she had been seated when her breast had been removed, that the blood had run down her body and puddled in the vee between her legs. There had been a lot of it, and what hadn't run off had pooled on the vinyl, not quite drying. It shook in a perverted mockery of cherry-red Jell-O when Warrick took the chair and positioned it under the cat. He climbed up onto the seat, taking his time, taking advantage of the height to survey the room, his training kicking in.

It was longer than it was wide, but a big space, maybe 40 x 60 feet. The basement room had no windows and only one door, the door positioned behind Nick. The floor was cement and the walls cinderblock. It had at one time obviously been the maintenance room for the building. There was no furniture with the exception of the two chairs and a cot, the head of it positioned in the center of one of the longer walls. The cot was made up with a mattress and a neatly folded gray woolen blanket, a pillow, but no sheets or pillowcase. Along all the walls there were tool benches with drawers and cupboards in their fronts, and pegboards above the benches. One of the benches held a deep double sink, but Warrick suspected the water to the building had long since been turned off.

All the boards and work surfaces were empty now with the exception of a pile of clothing on the bench nearest the body. He could see purple and tan, shirt and skirt or shorts, maybe. White panties and bra were strewn on top, the last to come off. His eyes clouded with emotion and he looked down at the victim, allowing himself to really look at her for the first time. She was in her mid 20's, he thought, and had been pretty, with a nice figure and dark brown hair that contrasted with pale skin. Her killer had left the same signature as he had with the other two bodies Warrick had seen. Her right breast had been cleanly, almost tidily removed, and Warrick looked around for the instrument that would have done it, probably a scalpel, but saw nothing. He wondered what had happened to the removed tissue, but he could see no sign of it. Like the others, she had been strangled with a white cord, nothing unusual, the kind you buy at hardware stores to use for tying down loads or pulling draperies or a dozen other innocuous uses. Warrick realized it was the same kind that was used to string up the cat and to bind his own wrists, and he suspected there was a roll of it around someplace, either here or in the man's vehicle. The killer had pulled hard; the ligature marks on the victim's neck were deep and had drawn blood.

Warrick continued to scan the room. There was a case of bottled water next to the cot, almost new, maybe three of the two dozen bottles removed. Nothing else was on the floor except a small pet carrier and the plastic sheeting near the body and a round metal trash can on the wall by the door. The ceiling was tiled, each rectangular tile maybe a foot by eighteen inches, with metal strips running between each tile. There were four strips of fluorescent lights running along the ceiling from back to front. He figured the building was abandoned, and he had wondered about the lights earlier. He cocked his head and listened and yes, he could hear the faint hum of a generator outside. A large boiler was against the wall opposite the cot, but it was giving off no heat and making no sound, and water pipes ran lengthwise down the room, suspended a foot below the ceiling tiles. The orange cat he was about to untie was hanging from one of the pipes.

"You got that cat down yet?"

Warrick quickly put his hands on the knot of the cord. "It's a hard knot, man. Could use the knife."

The man chortled. "Funny. Just get it down. Remember, put it right on top of her, on her cunt, and then wrap her up."

Warrick's fingers worked the series of knots, but he turned when he heard Nick cry out. Nick's body was wracked with spasms, bent as far forward as it would go with his hands bound to the arms of the chair, his body bucking so hard the front legs of the chair were thumping on and off the floor. Nick was ashen, beads of sweat on his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, mouth a straight, thin line. The spasms stopped and he shuddered, then mumbled something Warrick couldn't make out. He saw Carrie dive for the trash can and hold it in front of Nick just in time to catch the stream of vomit.

"I'm taking off the tape," Carrie announced, not even looking up to see if assent was granted.

"Hang in there, buddy," Warrick said, too loudly, and Carrie looked over at him, but the man didn't, seemingly mesmerized by Nick's agony. Warrick caught Carrie's eyes and held them. He mouthed to her, "I need the tape," and sighed in relief when she nodded before turning once again to Nick.

Warrick climbed down from the chair, his right hand fisted around the cord, the orange cat dangling from the end. The bastard was careful, he'd give him that. Warrick had looked, from his perch on the chair, for anything in the room that might have held DNA. Doc Robbins had said the victims had been raped, postmortem, Warrick remembered with a shiver, but they had found no semen. Warrick had scanned the room for condoms but could find none, used or otherwise. There were no stray hairs near the body and he dared not go over to the cot to check there. He suspected the killer wore the latex gloves the entire time he was in the room, so prints were unlikely. The piece of tape was a long shot, but even if the man's prints weren't on it, it still had a story to tell. Yeah, the guy was careful, but he had just made his first mistake. And it was a big one. He had instructed CSI Brown, as skilled at planting evidence as he was at finding it, to prepare a body that, sooner or later, was going to be discovered. Warrick was desperately hoping for sooner.

Carrie undid the tape around Nick's ankles first, picking at the seam with her fingernails and then pinching the end between fingers when she had a raised edge. It had been stretched tight and wrapped three times around. Nick yelped each time she moved his leg to unwind the tape, but she never lost her focus and when she reached the last layer she pulled it off with sure and quick hands, not even wincing when she heard it rip against skin as she tugged.

The gunman had been watching her intently, as he had done every time she touched Nick. Carrie knew he was getting sexual pleasure out of watching her interact with Nick, but she could do nothing about that. Nick's pain aroused him, and especially the agonized sounds stemming from that pain, but she could do nothing about that, either. What she could do was give him nothing of herself that was personal. She tended Nick, but she made no attempts to comfort him. She didn't pet him or murmur to him or cry for him. She was determined not to show that side of herself, that side that he wanted her to reveal when he decided that it was her fate to watch Nick suffer.

The tricky part, she could see now, was in getting the tape to Warrick on the other side of the room.

"Trash can reeks," Carrie said, hoping the man would grab it and not tell her to move it. He took his eyes off Nick long enough to grasp the receptacle around the rim and set it back in its place next to the door. In that moment, Carrie tossed the tape to Warrick, where it landed at his feet. The gunman was back in seconds, eyes riveted, gun pointed.

"Take it off his wrists," he ordered her, and Carrie began the same process with the tape that was securing Nick to the chair arms. She hoped Warrick didn't need these, too, because there was no way she was going to get them to him.

Warrick had what he needed. If the killer had left no part of himself behind in this room, Warrick knew where he had. Warrick dipped his finger in the gaping wound of the victim's chest and with his macabre pen scrawled two letters and a word on the underside of the victim's left arm. It wasn't enough, but he was out of time. The man was walking toward him. Warrick placed the arm against the body and put the cat, as instructed, between the victim's legs. Warrick straddled the tape Carrie had tossed to him, not wanting to step on it, but hoping to conceal it just long enough.

The man looked at the body and grunted his approval. "All right. Wrap her."

Warrick looked dubiously at the roll of plastic. "I need to cut it."

"No. Use it all. I don't need it anymore."

Warrick didn't want to know what that meant, didn't want to think about it. But he couldn't stop himself. Was that son of a bitch planning to kill the three of them in this room and then walk away from it? Leave them here to rot until the demolition team came to tear down the building, and who knew when that would be? Years, maybe. He fervently hoped that the guy wouldn't change things up now and would dump the body in plain sight, as he had the others. He was pretty sure he would, was too arrogant not to have his kill on display.

Warrick's attention turned to the plastic and the gunman's back to Nick. He left Warrick alone and Warrick unrolled the sheeting onto the floor, enough to lay the body on. He lifted the body onto the plastic, being careful not to displace the arm. He held the cat in place with one hand and rolled the body to one side with the other, positioning the plastic around the part of the body that was off the floor. He repeated the process with the other side of the body. When he had a layer of sheeting covering the corpse, he pinched a section of sheeting between fingers and used the plastic between his fingers to pick up the piece of tape. He placed the tape on the layer of sheeting he had just wrapped around the body, and then once again proceeded to tip the body, hold the cat in place, and unroll the plastic. It was bizarre work, but he was entirely focused on it, grateful for the opportunity to divert his mind from Nick's moans, and thankful to have a purpose, to be doing something that might help Nick, that might help them all to get out of this. It went faster once the cat was secure and he could actually roll the body over and over, unwinding the sheeting as he went. Finally, the plastic was off the roll and the body completely cocooned. There were so many layers of plastic it was impossible to see through them.

The man had been watching him finish and called out to him. "Bring her over here, next to the door."

Warrick struggled to pick her up, then walked to the door. He set her down as gently as he could in front of it. He stood next to Carrie, who was bent over Nick, trying to remove his tee shirt. Nick's hands were free now, but he was barely conscious, his head lolling forward onto his chest, mumbling something incoherent. Warrick moved to help Carrie and instantly felt the gun at the base of his neck.

"You just stay where you are. In fact, face the wall and put your hands against it. If you turn around, your friend here has to figure out how to fuck without a cock." He turned to Carrie. "You wouldn't like that too much, would you, whore?"

Carrie was silent, looking at him with the unperturbed calm she had adopted whenever he addressed her. Warrick did as he was ordered, palms placed against the cool gray cinderblocks of the wall.

"I have a little business to take care of," the man told Carrie. He looked at Nick, body limp in the chair. "Enjoy him now, because after I get back he's not going to have any working parts left."

He laughed and took a key out of his pocket and undid the padlock on the door of the room, glancing back at Warrick every few seconds to make sure he was staying put. He grabbed the body by the shoulders, struggling for a moment to find purchase as one hand continued to grasp his weapon, and began to back his quarry out the door. He kept the gun pointed at Nick as he did so, knowing that was the most effective way to keep the other two in check as he maneuvered out of the room. The metal door slammed shut behind him and they could hear the bar being lowered back into place, the padlock snapping closed. Warrick could hear an uneven thump-a-thump on the stairs and he pictured the man walking backwards up the steps, pulling the body up each tier. He remembered that Doc Robbins had found postmortem bruising on the heels of the other two victims.

As soon as their captor was out of the room, Carrie spoke to Warrick. "Help me get Nick's shirt off. There's so much blood. I never really got a chance to look at the back of his shoulder."

Warrick came to stand next to her, but he took her by the hand and drew her away from Nick. "In a minute. Carrie, you have to figure out how that bastard knows you. What did he say? Something about you were pure and that's why she kept you away from him. Who kept you away? What does that mean?"

Carrie shook her head hopelessly. "I don't know. I just don't know."

"Maybe he's someone you had sessions with, maybe…"

"We went over this in the lab. Shit, I've gone over this in the Atlanta office and the Denver office, too. Don't you think I've tried to put the pieces together, tried to figure it out?"

"But you've _seen_ him now. You have to know who he is."

The calm veneer that she had in place for the gunman was beginning to crumble and she shouted at him, her voice edged with frustration and anger. "_I don't know_. Do you get that, Warrick? I don't fucking _know_ who he is!!"

Warrick started to reach out to her, to put his hand on her arm to both comfort and apologize, but he stopped short, the hand motionless in the air. He heard a thud and the simultaneous crack of elbows and knees connecting with concrete as Nick wordlessly pitched from the chair and spilled onto the floor, as if someone had tipped the chair forward and had dumped him to the ground.


	14. Chapter 14

"Shit!" Warrick was by Nick's side in one long-legged bound and knelt next to him. Carrie was there almost as quickly and knelt down also.

Warrick could feel his own heartbeat thumping erratically against the wall of his chest as he put his fingers on Nick's neck in search of the carotid. Carrie watched him with held breath and wide, frightened eyes. She let out a sob of relief when Warrick blew out a breath and nodded. Nick had pitched forward out of the chair, landing on elbows and knees before rolling onto his left side, injured shoulder and injured leg now both pressed against the cement floor.

"Get him on his back," Warrick said. He grasped Nick's legs and rotated them to the right as Carrie did the same to his shoulders. Her hand came away smeared with blood. Warrick saw and knelt next to her.

"I need to prop him up. Can you hold him?"

Carrie nodded and Warrick gripped Nick under the armpits and lifted his torso off the floor. Carrie got up and moved to stand behind Nick, then plopped down on her rump, her legs spread out on either side of Nick's. Warrick eased his limp form back towards Carrie's waiting arms.

"Let's get his shirt off." Warrick gently raised one of Nick's arms over his head while Carrie rolled the olive tee shirt up from the bottom and pulled the sleeve over the arm. She repeated the process when Warrick raised the other arm, then gripped the shirt by the collar and pulled it over Nick's drooping head. It was like undressing a sleeping child, she thought, remembering the times her brother had fallen asleep on the couch and her dad had carried him up to bed, getting him out of his clothes and into his pajamas without Scott ever really waking up.

Nick didn't wake up, either, and Carrie was almost sick with fear. Her heart had ached each time Nick had cried out or moaned, and she had silently, selfishly, begged for the sounds to stop. They had, and now she wished for them back, for any indication that Nick was coming back around, that he was not sunk so deep into blackness that she was not going to get him back.

The shirt was heavy and sodden with blood and she handed it to Warrick. He looked at it a second before setting it on the floor and looking at Nick's wound.

"Damn." The wound was a through-and-through, as he had known it would be. But he wasn't prepared for all the blood. Nick's back to the chair and the dark olive of the tee had disguised the seriousness of the situation. The entry wound, the skin torn and abused by the intrusive barrel of the gun, was still trickling blood, red drops dribbling down the left side of Nick's chest and down to the belt of his jeans. But it was the exit wound that concerned Warrick most. It was bleeding freely, heavily. Nick's back was coated and slick with blood and the waistband of his jeans and the leather of his belt were wet with it.

The leg wound might be the one that had caused Nick such agonizing pain that his body had rebelled with spasms and vomiting, but Warrick knew that the shoulder wound was the one that was threatening to take Nick's life. Warrick figured he had lost well over a pint already, probably closer to two, and if they didn't get this under control now, Nick was going to bleed out on the floor in front of them. He didn't know if it was blood loss or reaction to the intense pain in his leg that had caused Nick to pass out, but he suspected the shoulder wound was the major contributor.

"Keep hold of him," he told Carrie. He moved to the other side of the room and grabbed two bottles of water from the case by the cot. When he returned, he took off his own shirt and then the sleeveless tee shirt underneath. He gripped the seams of the tee shirt and tore it apart, then ripped it again and again until he had strips of cloth to use as bandages. He put his outer shirt back on and then bent over to pick up the discarded lengths of duct tape Carrie had removed from Nick's wrists. He set the water and tape next to Carrie and picked up Nick's shirt. He quickly opened one of the water bottles and wet the bottom of the shirt that was still free of blood. He used it to wipe the blood from Nick's back. He took off Nick's belt and cleaned away the blood that had made its way under the waistband of his jeans. He took the cloth he had ripped and folded several of the strips together into a thick bandage. He put it over the bloody hole in the back of Nick's shoulder.

"Hold that," he instructed Carrie. "Press it against him as hard as you can."

Warrick took one of the lengths of duct tape and tore it in half with his teeth. He taped the bandage down at the top and bottom with the tape, making sure the bandage was pulled taut. He wiped the blood from Nick's chest and made another bandage for the entry wound, repeating the process he had used for the back. He wasn't at all confident the bleeding would stop, but he knew he had slowed it down, and it would slow even more when Nick was prone again. He really wanted to get him to the cot, but even with Carrie's help, he didn't think they could get Nick up off the floor and across the room without some contribution from him, so they'd have to make do until he regained consciousness. Like Carrie, Warrick was beginning to worry about the utter lack of sound from Nick and wondered if he should try to rouse him. He wanted to dress the leg wound first, though. Carrie shifted uncomfortably against Nick's weight and Warrick watched her with concern.

"You all right? I just want to bandage his leg, then we can get him back down."

Carrie nodded and Warrick saw the tears in her eyes, but he said nothing else.

The leg wound had never bled much after the initial entry of the bullet. There was an angry hole, the edges torn and discolored. As Carrie had discovered earlier, there was no exit wound on the other side, and Warrick suspected the 9-millimeter was buried in the tibia. Nick was shot in the shoulder at close range, but the leg was shot from across the room. _When I mouthed off to that bastard_, Warrick thought. But he shook his head quickly and reached for the last strip of white cloth. Self-recrimination wasn't going to help Nick, and he could see Carrie beginning to crumble. He needed to stay strong and focused for both of them.

Warrick began to wrap the cloth around Nick's shin, and he could feel the leg tremble when he pulled tight to tie it off at the back. He had just finished the knot when without warning, Nick groaned and the leg kicked out, catching Warrick in the chest and sending him sprawling backwards. Warrick caught his breath, taken unaware but not hurt. Nick's shoeless foot had done no damage, and if anything Warrick was relieved that Nick was finally rousing, even if it was the fiery torment in his leg that had brought him back.

Warrick got up and then knelt back down next to Carrie. Nick was stirring in her arms, moaning softly, eyelids fluttering but not opening. When they did open, Warrick could see the panic in them. Nick drew in a sharp gasp of air and pushed himself forward. Carrie looked over at Warrick uncertainly, but Warrick was quick to read the situation. He had seen that look before.

"Let go of him," he ordered Carrie, and she let her arms fall away from Nick. Warrick repositioned himself so Nick could see him. He knew that when Nick had opened his eyes, all he had seen were the gray walls in front of him. He hadn't known that Warrick was beside him or Carrie behind him. He hadn't known that it was Carrie who held him.

"Hey, buddy," Warrick said softly.

Nick's eyes searched his, panic replaced by confusion. His voice was barely audible. "Wha?"

"You passed out, man," Warrick said. "Hit the floor."

Nick scanned the room. This time his voice was edged with alarm. "Where's Carrie?"

Warrick waited for Carrie to answer, but she remained silent.

"On the floor behind you. Keeping you from using the cement as a pillow." Warrick could see some of the tension leave Nick's muscles as he allowed himself to lean back against Carrie. But he still scanned the room, still looked at Warrick with questioning brown eyes.

"He's gone, bud," Warrick told him. "Left to get rid of the body."

Nick coughed and spoke with effort. "Be back."

Warrick reached for one of the water bottles. "Yeah, Nicky, I know. But maybe not for a while." He held the water bottle up to Nick's lips and Carrie supported his head while he drank. Some of it dribbled down his chin, but he managed to get a good draw. He wiped the water away with the back of his hand. He suddenly groaned and bent forward and clutched each side of his injured leg with his hands, dug nails into the flesh and cried out.

Carrie bit her lip until she tasted blood, and Warrick put his hand over one of Nick's, not trying to stop Nick's hand from clawing at the leg, just letting Nick know he was there. After a minute, but what seemed like so many more to both Warrick and Carrie, Nick's cries abated and his hands grew slack. There were tears on his cheeks.

"Can't…can't take this," he said softly. "God, it hurts. Never…never had anything hurt like this."

"I know, bro," Warrick said. "I think the bullet's in the bone."

Nick closed his eyes and fell against Carrie, his weight bending her back. Warrick grasped his shoulders and brought him more upright.

"Stay with us, Nicky. Don't pass out again." Warrick needed him conscious to get him to the cot, but more than that, he needed to talk to him about what had happened, how he got here.

"Nick, I need you to focus. Look at me."

With obvious effort, Nick raised his head and looked at Warrick, eyes wavering, but then holding their gaze.

Once again Warrick put his hand over Nick's. "Good. Nick, do you know where this place is? Did you see anything?"

Nick shook his head slowly. "He knocked me…knocked me out. Tar arn."

"What?"

"Tar arn," Nick mumbled. "He hit me in the head with a tar arn."

Warrick shook his head in confusion and looked to Carrie, Nick's fellow Texan, for translation.

"Tire iron," Carrie supplied, and she frowned as her fingers found the Ping-Pong ball-sized lump on the back of Nick's head. But Warrick couldn't help the gentle smile that formed on his own lips. Nick always drawled his long i's, and those two words said by Nick in succession would have been a puzzle to Warrick under the best of circumstances.

"Where were you, man?"

"By my house. Was going out to do errands. He was across the street. Said he needed help with a flat."

"What was he driving, Nicky?"

Nick didn't answer and once again closed his eyes, his head flopping forward, drained by the effort of speech. Carrie put her hand under his chin and raised his head up. She patted the side of his cheek.

"Nick. Nick, stay awake. Look at Warrick." Her voice was stern and commanding, and Warrick realized that this was the first time she had spoken directly to Nick since they had entered the room and found him here, and her words were not those of comfort. But Nick responded to them and forced his eyes back open, his focus once again on Warrick.

"Did you see what he was driving, buddy?"

"Van," Nick muttered. "White."

Warrick nodded. It was the answer he was expecting.

"Okay, you're doing good. Could you tell what direction he was driving, how long it took you to get here?"

Nick shook his head. "Was out. Didn't come to 'til I was here. Woke up in the chair. Saw…saw the cat."

Warrick pictured Nick as he regained consciousness, bound to a chair that was pointed at a dead cat and a mutilated body. He imagined Nick's reaction when his vision cleared and the first thing that came into focus was an orange cat, white cord around its neck, swinging from a water pipe.

"I'm sorry, bro."

Nick tried to shrug but couldn't pull it off. "He left me here. He got…he got you and Carrie." It was a statement, but Warrick knew he was searching for answers.

"At your house. He was waiting there for Carrie. I don't think he wanted me, but I showed up anyway. He kept me from doing anything by holding that damn gun on Carrie."

Warrick was sorry as soon as he said it. He saw Carrie stiffen behind Nick, knew it was a memory that was going to be with her for a long time coming. He remembered the terror in her eyes as the bastard pressed the gun to her head, holding her around the throat so tight she sputtered for breath. He remembered his own panic when she lost consciousness and for an agonizing moment he didn't know whether or not she would regain it, remembered the feeling of impotence and rage as he watched that son of a bitch grope her under her blouse and grind himself against her. He vowed that Nick would never know that part of it, at least not from him. But he had said enough.

Nick looked sharply at Warrick, recalling not only the bruise of the gun muzzle on Carrie's head, but also the ugly evidence of the fingers that had been wrapped around her throat. The killer's voice echoed once again. _Do you think you're the only one who can touch her?_ His eyes demanded of Warrick the answer to a question he was afraid to voice, couldn't bring himself to voice, with Carrie in the room. But Warrick looked uncomfortably away.

"How…how long was she alone with him, before you got there?"

Warrick knew what he wanted, waited for Carrie to reassure him. But she remained silent. He met Nick's eyes. "He didn't…hurt her. She's okay, Nick." It was awkward to talk about Carrie as if she wasn't sitting on the floor right at his feet, but she wasn't offering up anything on her own.

Nick tried to turn to look at her, but the effort made him dizzy, and he once more leaned back into her arms, accepting what Warrick had told him, trying to refocus.

"You…you see anything? In the van?"

"Nope. He had us blindfolded. I tried to figure out which direction he was driving, but he took too many turns. Drove for about 45 minutes, I think, but that doesn't mean much. I don't think he was trying to take a straight shot."

"No one knows we're here." Nick's voice sounded faint and hollow, and Warrick thought about telling him about the body, how it might help ID the killer. But Nick had had enough. His eyes closed again and he let himself go limp in Carrie's arms.

"We have to get you off the floor, Nicky. Get you down on that cot. You got to stay with me, man. Then you can rest, I promise."

Warrick took the water bottle again and spilled some into his hands, then gently patted the water onto Nick's face. When Nick had once more opened his eyes and raised his head, Warrick held the bottle and coaxed Nick to drink.

"Carrie's going to let go of you," Warrick said. "Try to stay sitting up. If you fall over, it's going to be harder to get you off the floor."

Warrick nodded to Carrie and she scooted backward on her rump away from Nick. Nick started to sway, but he braced his hands on the floor on either side of his hips and managed to hold himself upright. Warrick held out a hand to Carrie and pulled her to her feet. She staggered, her leg muscles cramped and her butt numb. Warrick held onto her until he felt her find her footing. He placed the chair next to Nick's left side.

"Okay, Nick. Use the chair to hoist yourself up so you don't put too much weight on your leg. I'm going to pull you up from behind."

Warrick stood behind Nick and bent over to hook his hands under Nick's armpits, and Nick braced his hand on the seat of the chair, ready to use it for leverage.

"Up on three, Nicky. Ready? One…two…three!!"

On the third count Warrick pulled with all his strength, forcing Nick to rise from the ground. Nick tried to do his part, pulling himself up by simultaneously pushing down on the chair and off the floor with his legs. His right leg cooperated, but his left buckled under him as soon as he put pressure on it. Warrick felt him tremble and held him tight, determined to get him upright. Warrick pulled up on him, forcing Nick to put his left foot flat on the floor. Nick cried out, and the cry morphed into a scream when Warrick managed to get him up all the way, both Nick's legs bearing his full weight. Before Warrick had a chance to reposition himself at Nick's left side to take the burden off the leg, he felt Nick's body sag in his arms.

"No, no, no, no. Don't pass out, Nicky. Damnit!"

Carrie quickly moved to Nick's right side and put her arm around his waist while Warrick did the same on the left. Warrick draped Nick's arm around his own strong shoulders.

"Got him?" asked Warrick, his plan to have Nick's aid in getting to the cot now abandoned.

Carrie nodded and together they backed to the other side of the room, finding it easier to pull and drag Nick along than to try and move him forward. His heals scraped unevenly along the floor, one bare, the other protected by his shoe. Warrick had an unbidden vision of the killer dragging the body out of the room and up the stairs, much the way they were dragging Nick. _But it's not the same_, he told himself. _Nick's not dead. Nick's not going to die_.

When they reached the cot they backed Nick onto it and let him fall. Warrick put his legs up and rolled him to his right side, and he put the pillow under his head. He covered him with the gray blanket. He and Carrie both just stood there, out of breath, and stared at Nick. He was pale and his skin felt clammy when Warrick gently put a hand to his forehead. Warrick wasn't sure anymore if Nick's body was reacting to the loss of blood from his shoulder wound or the horrific pain in his leg. Either one could send him into shock, if he didn't already have the beginnings of it. Warrick checked the bandages on the front and back of the shoulder wounds and was relieved to see they had not darkened any more since he had initially put them on. He adjusted the blanket and put his hand lightly on top of Nick's head, let it linger there before he withdrew it almost reluctantly.

Warrick didn't know what else to do for him, and just watched him breathe, which was enough just now. Nick's chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm and Warrick felt himself become calmer. He looked at Carrie. Her eyes were bright with tears, and a few had fallen, glistening on her cheeks in the harsh fluorescent light. She was watching Nick, as Warrick was, but she had backed away from him. It had been Warrick who had gently covered Nick with the wool blanket, Warrick who had felt his forehead, who had stroked his hair. Warrick could see in her eyes how much Nick's pain hurt her, which was more than she had shown the killer when he was in the room. But she was holding herself back, with effort, Warrick thought, and he couldn't quite figure her out. She had yet to offer Nick any words of comfort, had yet to even touch him as Warrick had in any reassuring or tender way.

Carrie felt Warrick's eyes on her and looked away from Nick and met his gaze. He walked to the other side of the room and she followed, by unspoken agreement moving out of Nick's hearing where they could talk in case he came to.

"Shoulder wound almost quit bleeding, I think," Warrick said. "That's good."

Carrie nodded. "But his leg, Warrick. He's in so much pain."

"I know. I'm pretty sure the bullet's lodged in the bone." He clenched his fists and dug them into his thighs. "Damnit! Damnit, Carrie, I don't know what to do. Maybe when that bastard gets back, I can…"

Carrie quickly took his arm and looked at him pleadingly. "No, Warrick. No. You try anything and he'll hurt Nick more. You know that. Look what he did to him when you refused to…"

She stopped when he pulled away from her with a low groan.

"God. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Warrick. This isn't your fault. Please believe that. He was going to hurt Nick no matter what. That's what he was after, to hurt him in front of me, to make me watch. And I know he's not done. He's going to kill him, Warrick. When he comes back, he'll hurt him some more and then he'll kill him. That's what he wants me to see. I'm alive to watch Nick die, and I think you're only alive because killing you is not part of his sequence right now; you weren't even supposed to be here. But he'll kill both of us when he's done with Nick. I'm certain of that. He's not going to leave witnesses who can describe him."

Her voice was wavering and the tears that had begun to fall when she helped Nick to the cot now started to stream in earnest. She was losing hold of the control she had so valiantly maintained while the killer was in the room. She turned her face to the wall and her back trembled. Warrick stood next to her and gently took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. He drew her against him and held her.

"You don't need to hold it back anymore. You did good. Real good. You can let it go now."

She let the sobs come and cried against him as he tried to soothe her. Neither of them heard Nick's low moans as he regained consciousness. They didn't see him struggle to rise and throw the blanket to the floor, didn't see him brace his back against the wall while he gathered the energy needed to maneuver his legs over the side of the cot. They didn't see him pivot around and swing his legs over in one fierce effort, his hands clutching at his wounded leg as he did so. They didn't see him sit on the edge and force a hand into his front pocket, didn't know he was groping for the three-inch-blade pocketknife that was never found because he was never frisked. They didn't see him open the blade and hunch over to cut away the bandaging on his wound. They didn't see him set his mouth in a straight line of determination, didn't see his eyes darken with purpose. And they didn't see him plunge the blade into the gory hole in his leg.

But they heard the scream. A guttural, agony-filled outcry that echoed off the cinderblock walls. Warrick had never moved so fast. He let go of Carrie so quickly that she stumbled and fell to her knees. He was at Nick in seconds but stood dumbstruck in front of him once he got there. Nick's hands had fallen away from the knife and now it stuck out from the wound at a ninety-degree angle, vibrating crazily back and forth like a tuning fork.

Warrick watched it in horror. "_Fuck_! What the fuck did you _do_, Nicky?"


	15. Chapter 15

Carrie had suddenly appeared in front of the cot, and in one quick, sure motion she grasped the knife and pulled it out of Nick's leg. She looked at the bloody blade and then at Nick. His eyes glazed and they began to roll back. He swayed to the side and she tried to catch him, but he was dead weight against her.

"Warrick! Warrick, help me!"

The panic in her voice brought Warrick out of his inaction. He sat on the other side of Nick and eased him away from Carrie and against his own shoulder, not trying just then to get him lying back down onto the cot. Warrick held a firm arm around him, his hand between Nick's side and arm, careful not to grasp the injured shoulder. Nick's head lolled against Warrick. But he wasn't out like he had been before. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around, as if checking his bearings. His eyes found Warrick's, and Warrick could tell he was trying to focus, to put pieces together.

Warrick tightened his grip. "Hey, bro. Hey. You almost passed out again. You with us now?"

Nick looked away from Warrick and down at his leg, fresh blood flowing from the wound and trickling down his shin, parting in tributaries at his ankle and flowing in rivulets down either side, making small, matching crimson pools on each side of his foot.

He looked back at Warrick. "Gotta…gotta try again."

"Try what, man? What the hell were you trying to do, Nick?"

Nick struggled to sit more upright and Warrick helped him, but still held his arm around him, not sure that Nick was going to stay with him.

"Hurts," Nick said, his voice a ragged rasp. "Can't stand it anymore. Thought I could…could dig it out."

Warrick stared at him in stunned abhorrence. "Aw, shit. Shit, Nicky."

Carrie was kneeling in front of Nick and had begun to tend to the blood on Nick's leg, wiping it away with the discarded bandage. She drew in a sharp breath when Nick spoke, but said nothing.

"Didn't think…" Nick gathered his breath. "Didn't think it would hurt so much."

Warrick's voice held both amazement and anger. "Of _course _it hurt. You stab a _knife blade_ into a _bullet hole_ and of _course_ it's going to hurt. Jesus, Nick. You stupid son of a bitch."

Carrie rose to her feet and put her hand on Warrick's arm. "That's enough, Warrick."

_Leave him alone, Carrie,_ Nick wanted to say. _Can't you see how scared he is? Just let him do this for a_ _while. This is how he deals. Feels better to be pissed than hurting. You know that._

But he said nothing. The new pain from the knife stab was receding and the old, familiar, consuming pain was back. It returned on a wave of nausea that he was powerless to ward off. He groaned and tried to push off from Warrick, but he was too slow. His shoulders heaved and he hung his head between his legs and retched.

Carrie was ready, had seen the nausea take him, beads of sweat on his upper lip, faint green tinge on his pale cheeks. She sprinted for the trashcan he had used before and held it in front of him. Warrick held his shoulders and Nick vomited the last of the contents of his stomach into the metal can.

Nick wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and tried to sit back up. He swayed unsteadily and Warrick pressed a hand on his back, forcing him gently but firmly back down.

"Whoa, buddy. Just stay bent for another minute. Put your head down. Deep breaths."

Nick tried, and Warrick could feel his friend's shoulders tremble with the effort of drawing air through the pain. Warrick helped him sit back up. He still swayed a bit, and Warrick held him steady.

"Let's get you lying back down." Warrick nodded to Carrie, who was once again kneeling in front of Nick. The old bandage she had used to wipe away the blood was sodden, and she unbuttoned her pale blue blouse and took it off. The blood from the wound was a small trickle now and she wiped it away with the bottom of the blouse. She decided not to bind the leg, fairly certain the blood would stop altogether soon. His leg wound never had bled like his shoulder had, and if anything, when she needed a new bandage it would be for that. She could see the blood seeping through the back of that bandage even now. He had jarred the shoulder when he leaned against the wall in his attempts to rise from the bed, but she hadn't seen that.

"Not on his back," she told Warrick.

Warrick looked at her, on her knees in front of Nick in a lacey cream-colored bra. "Damn, girl. We could have used _my_ shirt."

Carrie shrugged. "A shirt's a shirt. And his shoulder's bleeding again. We'll use yours soon enough."

Warrick nodded and gently grasped Nick's legs and swung them onto the cot while Carrie's hands eased him down onto his right side, left shoulder and left leg not coming in contact with the thin mattress. As soon as he was down, Nick instinctively curled in on himself, knees sharply bent and pointed to his chest. Warrick and Carrie could see the spasm of pain shoot through him. His body shuddered and he rocked back and forth on the mattress, his hands clutching either side of his injured leg. He groaned through clenched teeth and let loose a string of obscenities.

"Warrick…"

Warrick put his hand on Nick's thigh and pressed reassuringly. "Right here, buddy. Right here."

"Where's…where's the knife?"

Warrick shook his head. "I don't know, bro," he said honestly. He wasn't sure what Carrie had done with it after she had pulled it from his leg.

"Find it," Nick gasped. "Find it and…" He moaned and rolled his head and shoulders closer to the edge of the mattress, hanging his head over the side. He threw up into the can that Carrie had once again strategically placed below him. There was nothing in him this time but bile, and it burned his throat. He grimaced and his eyes watered.

"Shit!! Fucking shit! I can't keep doing this." He wearily flopped his head back onto the pillow and began to blow out breaths in quick, shallow huffs. There was nothing now but pain, and he could see it, red with yellow edges when he squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to concentrate on blowing out his breath. It made him feel light-headed and dulled the edges of his torment.

Warrick put a hand on his back. "Slow it down, bro. Slow it down. You're gonna hyperventilate and pass out."

"Okay. Okay," Nick panted.

Warrick wasn't sure if Nick was agreeing to trying to slow down his breathing or whether he was letting Warrick know that it was okay if he passed out. Probably the latter, he realized with a stab of panic. If Nick lost consciousness it would provide relief, but it scared Warrick that Nick _wanted_ to pass out.

"Can't take it anymore," Nick rasped, his breathing not ratcheting down.

Warrick's panic increased. He knew Nick, knew Nick could endure a hell of a lot, _had _endured a hell of a lot, had endured what he himself never could. If Nick said he couldn't take it, then this was bad. This was fucking bad shit.

Warrick felt his eyes water. He reached for Nick's hand and folded his own around it. "Please try, Nicky. Slow it down. You can do it. Breathe on my count. Only on my count."

Warrick began a rhythmic count, his voice low and soothing, the numbers voiced at two-second intervals. "One…two…three…slower, Nicky…four…five…good, you're doin' it…six…seven…"

Nick began to exhale more slowly, and more importantly, he was starting to inhale for each breath expended. But it cost him. The pain grabbed hold of him once more; the injured leg spasmed on and off the mattress and Nick gripped Warrick's hand so hard Warrick winced in spite of himself.

"Find the knife," Nick gasped, when he could talk again. "Find the knife, Warrick, and take the bullet out."

Warrick shook his head silently, his gaze not meeting Nick's, detesting himself for looking away from those pleading, chocolate eyes, bright with tears of both frustration and pain. Nick removed his hand from Warrick's and grasped Warrick's forearm, pulling him closer to him.

"I want that mother-fucking whore _out_ of me! Get it out of me, Warrick, or give me the damn knife so I can do it."

Warrick just shook his head silently. Nick's scream of anguish when he had driven the knife into his leg was still replaying itself in his head. There was no way he was going to be responsible for a repeat of that kind of agony.

"I can't," he said honestly. "I'd just hurt you more. There'd be too much pain."

Nick's grip on Warrick's arm tightened. "There's too much pain _now_. And you can do it quick. Whatever it feels like when you do it, it will be over, Warrick. But this, what it feels like now, isn't going to go away." His eyes were begging. "Please, Rick. That bastard's going to come back here, and I don't want him seeing me like this."

Warrick wavered. He knew how much Nick must have loathed having his pain exposed to that sick freak and knew Nick didn't want the man to watch him cycle through his rotation of incapacitating pain, nausea, and near black-outs. Warrick tried to think logically, not letting himself be influenced by Nick's torment. What if he put Nick through that torture and it didn't help the pain anyway? Even if he somehow got the bullet out and he managed not to cut Nick up so much he bled to death, what if it never made a difference? What if he did so much damage to him he couldn't be fixed later? Christ, what if he killed him? Could a person die from pain? He wasn't sure, but he didn't want to be the one who brought it about. He just plain didn't know how to do what Nick was asking of him, and if Nick was thinking even a little bit clearly he could see that it was unreasonable to expect him to.

"I'm sorry, Nicky. I can't."

"Fuck you, man! Fuck you!" Nick pushed Warrick away from him so hard Warrick staggered and had to regain footing. Nick struggled to sit more upright, and Warrick knew he hated being completely down and helpless. Nick rolled from his side to his back and then pushed himself up with his elbows until his back was propped against the wall at the head of the cot. Warrick watched him with concern, knew he was tearing the damaged flesh in his shoulder when he leaned against the wall. But he doubted Nick even remembered he had been shot there, the pain in his leg so demanding of his energies and attention. Warrick reached for the pillow to put it behind his neck and shoulders, but Nick drew away, his eyes glaring at Warrick, letting him know he would not be forgiven for his betrayal.

"Don't touch me." Nick turned to the only ally he had left. "Carrie?"

Carrie had been standing back a bit, watching the scene between Warrick and Nick unfold, not sure how to help either one of them. She came to Nick now and positioned the pillow behind his injured shoulder.

"I'm here." She took his hand and held it.

Nick was done. Was done holding back screams, was done holding back tears, was done begging Warrick for help. He banged his head against the wall and yelled, a long howl of frustration. And then he sobbed. Tears streamed and shoulders shook and he didn't even try to rein himself in. He had simply had enough.

Carrie could stand it no longer. His desperation finally drove her to step over the barrier she had promised him she wouldn't cross. She touched his face and wiped the tears aside with soothing fingers. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. "Shh. Okay, okay. Hush, now. It's going to be okay. We'll take it out, baby. We'll take it out. It's going to be okay."

Warrick shook his head back and forth in denial. He rounded on her. "What the hell are you saying to him? We are _not_ doing this. Do you hear me, Carrie? We are _not_ carving into him with a goddamn pocketknife!"


	16. Chapter 16

Warrick rolled up his own pant leg and grasped Carrie by the wrist, pulling her away from Nick. He yanked her down and slapped her hand onto the front of his shin.

"Feel that," he ordered. "Just press down."

She did, the tone of his voice demanding compliance. She pressed her fingers against his skin, and he held her hand there.

"Do you see now? Can you feel it? There's nothing there, Carrie. There's no muscle, no flesh. There's only that layer of skin and then hard bone. When a nine-millimeter goes into the front of your tibia and doesn't come back out, it's buried in the bone. Period. Ain't no where else for it to be. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it."

Warrick had taken his hand away from Carrie's, but she kept her hand on Warrick's leg and frowned in thought. When Nick was first shot and she had wiped the blood from his leg, she had noticed the spongy give of the flesh surrounding the bullet wound. And when she had pulled the knife out, it had yielded to her easily. She knew she had pulled it from muscle and not from bone. Her fingers explored the narrow channel of muscle between Warrick's tibia and fibula.

"It's not in the bone," Carrie said with certainty. "Feel."

Warrick brought his hand down and his fingers ran up and down the slot between the two bones.

"Move your toes," Carrie said. "Raise them up off the floor."

Warrick wriggled his toes inside of his shoe and then pointed them up. He could feel the muscle beneath his fingers contract.

"It's the tibialus anterior muscle," Carrie told him. "It's the muscle that causes your toes to come up."

Warrick stared at her in a mixture of astonishment and admiration. "And you know this how?"

Carrie shrugged. "Good memory. I helped a friend study for her exams. Every day for a week. I could have taken that test for her."

Warrick wasn't quite convinced. "If it's not in the bone, there shouldn't be so much pain. I mean, it would hurt like hell, but it shouldn't be doing to him what it is."

"I don't know. It could be wedged up against the bone, maybe nicked it. Bones are sensitive. That would cause the pain. But it's not _in_ the bone. We can take it out, Warrick."

She got to her feet and looked at him, eyes bright with purpose. She was a lot like Nick, Warrick realized. All stubbornness and determination when she had her sights focused on something. And just as he did with Nick sometimes, a role he hated to play but played it anyway for Nick's sake, he pointed out the obvious flaws in the plan.

"You're trippin', girl. Knowing the name of some obscure muscle isn't the same as knowing how to take a bullet out of it. Unless you want to tell me you know that, too."

Carrie started to reply, but she heard Nick gag and hurried back to him. She positioned the trashcan under his hanging head once more and rubbed his back as he vomited into it. She glared at Warrick and spoke over the stomach-turning sounds of Nick's retching.

"You want to trade places with him for even one minute right now, Warrick? We're all he's got, and we're doing this for him. We'll figure it out, and we'll do it."

Nick quieted and Carrie felt the spasms of his back still. She set the can back on the floor and picked up her discarded blouse. She tore it at one of the side seams and then tore it again until she had a clean square of cloth. She wet it with water from one of the bottles and then gently wiped the waste from Nick's mouth and chin. She held the bottle out to Nick, but he shook his head wearily.

"You have to drink, baby. Have to keep hydrated. You keep getting rid of the water we're giving you."

Nick said nothing, but he held out his hand to take the bottle from her. The hand was shaking, and Carrie wrapped her own hand around his to steady it and kept it there until he had taken a sip from the bottle. Carrie put the cap back on and set it on the floor.

"Supply cabinet," Nick mumbled and Carrie bent her head closer to his.

"Say it again, baby."

Nick spoke with effort, the pain coming at him again, blurring the edges of his vision with the red and yellow swirls. He swallowed hard, determined not to throw up again.

"He has…supplies. Towels. Whi…whiskey. Gloves. Maybe…maybe a scalpel."

Carrie scanned the room, considering possibilities. She hadn't thought about what might have happened between the killer and Nick during their hours here together, hadn't thought about what Nick might have seen or known. And she wasn't sure she ever wanted to know, as selfish as she knew that was.

"I'll be back," she told Nick, kissing his forehead before walking purposefully to the side of the room where the body had been.

Warrick followed her. He had pretty much resigned himself to the fact that he was a part of this effort, as misguided as he still thought it was. Nick seemed calmer now that he realized Carrie was going to help him. He was obviously still in tremendous pain, but the loss of control that Warrick had seen earlier was back in check now. But it seemed tenuous, and Warrick feared that if they backed out now, Nick would lose it altogether. And what he had seen already had scared Warrick, frankly. He had seen Nick like that, worse than that, one other time before when Nick had thought there was no hope, no one to help him. His friend had been submerged so deep into his own desperation then that it seemed no one could reach him, although Grissom finally had.

Warrick wished that Grissom were here now. Hell, as long as he was wishing, he wished that Doc Robbins were here. He'd be the one to know exactly what to do. Warrick shook his head at himself. People were strange, and he included himself in that. In a crisis, people wished for things that could never be, but they never seemed to wish that the crisis had never happened in the first place. Instead of wishing for Grissom or Doc Robbins, why didn't he wish that this had never happened, that he was back home with Tina after enjoying a good dinner with friends, that Nick and Carrie were safely tucked away at Nick's, waiting for shift to start?

"Bingo." Carrie's voice brought Warrick out of his reverie. A hunch had guided her to the workbench closest to the bloodstained floor, the murderer's killing field. She had opened the cupboard underneath and began pulling things out of it, reaching up to blindly hand them off to Warrick, who set them on the top surface. Nick was right. There were two bath-sized white terry towels, a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey, a roll of duct tape, a box of size small disposable latex gloves, a roll of white nylon cording, a roll of white plastic trash bags, a box of zip-lock freezer bags, a box of condoms. The staples of a serial killer.

Warrick looked over the goods. The whiskey, towels, and gloves would all be used, and he could think of a use for the smaller bags as well. And the tape. As soon as he saw it, Warrick had already figured out, even if Carrie hadn't, how they were going to keep Nick still enough to cut into him without him bucking so hard that they'd slice him up to his kneecap. He was surprised at how quickly his mind was working on this now that he had committed to it. In for a penny, in for a pound, his grandmother would say.

Carrie stood back up straight and Warrick frowned. "No scalpel?"

Carrie shook her head. "No, at least not here. Let's check the rest of the room."

The two of them opened every cupboard and drawer in the room, which was considerable, but they were all empty. They returned to the supplies.

"He must have taken it with him," Warrick said. He was sure there had been one, or some sort of very sharp blade, because the breast tissue had been too cleanly removed to have been done by anything else.

"I guess we make do, then." Carrie reached into the front pocket of her wheat-colored slacks where she had dropped the knife after she had pulled it from Nick. She handed it to Warrick and he opened it up, eyeing the still-bloodied blade critically before closing it back up and putting it into his own pocket. He looked at the pile of clothing on the bench. The khaki skirt was thick cotton and would make good bandages. He set it on top of the towels and then picked up the lavender shirt. He held it out to Carrie. She looked at him questioningly.

"Put it on," Warrick told her.

Carrie had almost forgotten that she was clad from the waist up in only a bra. She took the shirt, a short-sleeved ribbed scoop neck, from Warrick. The lingering signature of its owner clung to the fabric. Powder-scented deodorant, the light spice of an earthy perfume. Carrie slipped the shirt over her head and murmured softly, the words not meant for Warrick's ears. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

They grabbed up all but the condoms and trash bags and deposited the items on the floor by the cot. Nick watched with interest, and, as Warrick had done, frowned when he saw what wasn't there.

"No scalpel, huh?''

"Sorry, bro." Warrick took the pocketknife out of his pocket. "At least we have this. I guess I won't ride you anymore about being a Boy Scout and carrying it around with you all the time."

"Yeah, I carry it and everyone else wants to borrow it." Nick attempted a smile, but his face paled and he shouted out as his body once more convulsed in pain. Carrie held his hand, but when Nick could talk again, it was directed at Warrick.

"The sooner the better, bro."

"Hang on, buddy. We'll do it, I promise. But this knife you're so proud of wouldn't slice butter, let alone…well, I just need to get it sharper."

Warrick took the knife, Carrie's torn blouse, and a bottle of water to the sink. He tried the faucet, just to make sure, but as he had suspected the water had been turned off. He poured water from the bottle over the blade and wiped it clean with the blouse. Then he poured the water on it again and drew it along the stainless steel edge of the sink, steel rasping on steel. He honed it against the hard edge of the sink for almost five minutes, letting the friction of each pull across the steel whet the blade to a thin, sharp edge. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and scraped the blade lightly along the top of his arm. A bald path appeared on his arm, a clean swath an inch wide where the edge of the blade had made contact, and six inches long. The hairs of his arm clung to the blade. Satisfied, Warrick rinsed the blade clean and wiped it once more with the pale blue cloth, not closing it back up into its handle. He returned to Nick and Carrie.

Warrick took a zip-lock bag from its box and handed it to Carrie. "Hold that open," he instructed her. He placed the knife in carefully, making sure the blade wouldn't pierce the plastic. He took out a pair of gloves from their box and put those in as well. He uncapped the bottle of whiskey and poured some into the bag until there was a pond of amber liquid deep enough in the bottom of the bag to cover the items he had placed into it. "We'll just let that sit there for a while," he said, "but don't let the bottom of the bag spread out or the whiskey won't cover the gloves and knife. I don't want to use very much of it." Carrie nodded and handed the bag back to Warrick as she took the other freezer bags out of their box and set them on the floor. She took the bag with the knife and gloves back from Warrick and propped it into the slot of the box. Warrick nodded approvingly.

Nick was looking longingly at the bottle of whiskey. "You got enough of that for me?"

Warrick glanced at him to see if he was joking, but he could see that he wasn't. Warrick had actually considered, briefly, getting Nick drunk on the stuff to dull the pain that he and Carrie were going to inflict on him, but he discarded the idea as folly. Alcohol thinned the blood, and he knew that the last thing Nick needed right now was blood less likely to clot.

But he held the bottle out to Nick, and as Carrie had done with the water, helped him hold onto it as he drew it up to his lips. "One swig, bud. That's your limit."

"Spoil sport." Nick took a long draw, longer than Warrick would have liked, and held the bitter liquid in his mouth before he swallowed. It burned its way down his throat, and he could feel the fire in his empty belly as soon as it hit his stomach. Nick realized he hadn't eaten anything since he had made the pancakes Carrie had mixed up for him that morning, and he had emptied his stomach of those. That breakfast seemed like a very long time ago now, another world ago.

Nick held the bottle out to Warrick, but Warrick shook his head and capped it back up. "Better not. I'm the designated driver."

Actually, Carrie was the designated driver and he was just riding shotgun. She had the smallest fingers, long but slender, and if it came to reaching in and trying to grasp that bullet, she was the one who would have to do it. And she'd have to make the initial cut, too. Warrick knew his strength would be needed to keep Nick steady. Warrick glanced at Carrie, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor tearing the khaki skirt into strips for bandages, and he wondered if she really knew what she was in for. He didn't doubt for a minute that she was up to it. Everything he had seen of her this day, the way she handled herself with the killer, the way she had of making Nick follow her commands, the way she had been so determined in what they were about to do now, made him certain she would not falter. He just wasn't sure that she fully knew what this was going to entail.

Warrick walked over to the end of the room by the door and eyed the chair that had been sitting there ever since Nick had used it to pull himself up off the floor. Warrick took it now and carried it over and set it in front of the cot. There was blood on it where Nick's back had rested against it, when the shoulder wound had bled so heavily without them being aware it was happening. Warrick took up the tattered cloth that had once been Carrie's blouse and used it yet again to wipe away blood. Nick and Carrie were watching him curiously and Warrick knew they weren't going to like what he was about to say.

"Nick, we have to put you back in the chair. Tape you back in it."

Nick stared at him, brown eyes wide in disbelief. Then he shook his head in denial. "No. No, Rick. I thought…I thought you'd do it here."

Carrie had gotten off the floor and stood by Nick. She said nothing, but her eyes teared up as she watched Nick's reaction. Warrick gave her a warning look, letting her know that if those tears fell, this was the end of it.

"Can't. I'm sorry, Nicky. It has to be the chair."

Nick wanted that bullet out, wanted it bad, but he couldn't reconcile himself to being pinned against that damn chair again, that chair he had been trapped in when his body took two bullets.

"Just…just try it here first. Please, Warrick."

Warrick sighed and moved to the bottom of the cot. He didn't like what he was about to do, but sometimes with Nick's obstinacy, you had to prove your point in order to get the guy to let go.

"Okay, Nick. I'm just going to see if I can feel the bullet through the skin. See if it might be close to the surface. All I'm going to do is press down with my fingers, but it's going to hurt. You ready?"

Nick braced his back against the wall, gritted his teeth, and held out his hand for Carrie to grasp. Ready, ready. He nodded. Warrick touched the flesh next to the wound tentatively, not wanting to touch the hole in the leg with ungloved hands. He applied the slightest of pressure, knew that's all it would take, and as soon as he did it Nick shouted out something incoherent, probably an obscenity, and his leg kicked up. Warrick was quick and dodged the kick, knew to look for it. If he hadn't, he'd have been swallowing teeth.

It was no victory for Warrick and there was no triumph when he looked up at Nick and saw that Nick knew the truth of it. They were all thinking the same thing, Warrick thought. _If it's this bad now, what's it going to be like when that blade is used_?

"We don't have to do this, Nick," Warrick said. He wasn't sure what he was expecting Nick to say to that, but he wasn't prepared for the anger in his partner's voice.

"Don't you back out on me, Warrick. Just put me in the fucking chair. It doesn't matter. Just do this, man. Just do it."

Nick meant it. It had been stupid to freak out about the chair, stupid to think that his body wouldn't rebel when the leg was touched. Hell, all this time doing nothing to that leg but lying here the pain was so bad that it sent him into spasms. What had he thought was going to happen? He just wanted the damn thing out, and at this point he didn't care what it took to accomplish that.

Carrie was still holding Nick's hand, and to her credit, Warrick thought, she had stoically held back the tears. Her eyes were searching as she looked into the deep chocolate brown of Nick's. "You have to be sure, Nick."

"Carrie," Nick said evenly, "what I'm sure of is that if this bullet doesn't come out the pain is going to break me down until I die from it."

He wasn't exaggerating or joking around, and they could see that. He had been right before. Whatever they did to him when they tried to do this would be over quickly, but to leave him the way he was now was nothing but torment that would continue until he didn't have the energy to fight it any more.

"All right," Warrick said. "See if you can sit on the edge of the mattress. I'll swing your legs around."

Nick braced his arms on either side of his hips and used the leverage to pivot away from the wall that had been supporting his back. At the same time, Warrick grabbed both Nick's legs and moved them in tandem off the mattress so that as Nick sat his legs hung over the side. Nick blanched, but he made no sound. He was determined to make this as easy as he could on Carrie and Warrick, and that meant bucking up and holding it in if he could, for as long as he could.


	17. Chapter 17

Warrick moved the chair closer to the cot. "Okay, bud. Keep your left leg off the floor. Carrie will be on one side of you and I'll be on the other. We'll do all the work. All you have to do is one hop to that chair."

True to his word, Warrick made it easy on him as he hoisted Nick up, with an assist from Carrie, and Nick did indeed need only a single one-legged step before he was lowered onto the gray vinyl seat of the metal chair. Warrick unrolled a length of duct tape and tore it off with his teeth. The cord might have been better for Nick, emotionally, anyway, Warrick thought, but he had no way to cut it. If he had been thinking, he would have cut it into lengths before he sterilized the knife, but he hadn't thought of it and he wouldn't use the knife on it now. Besides, the tape was easier and would keep Nick more immobile.

Nick sat impassively as Warrick wound the tape around Nick's right forearm, securing him to the arm of the chair. What had happened in that chair was behind him, Nick figured, and this was about moving forward. Still, he couldn't quite meet Carrie's eyes when he glanced at her and saw her watching him in sympathy. So he looked straight ahead, mostly, at the cinderblocks on the wall opposite, as Warrick bound his other arm. Then Warrick positioned Nick's right foot alongside the chair leg and taped it at the shin to the square metal leg of the chair. The left foot he also maneuvered against the leg of the chair so that there would be no gap between flesh and chair like there had been when Nick's foot had rested in front of the chair leg. The injured leg Warrick taped at both the ankle and just below the knee, pulling the tape taut as he wound, making sure there would be no give no matter how hard Nick fought against it.

Warrick looked up at the ceiling and frowned. "You get to go for a ride, bro. Need to get you directly under one of those lights."

Warrick motioned to Carrie and she gripped the back of the chair, her hands positioned next to Warrick's. They tipped the chair toward them, its front legs off the floor, and then pulled it backward to the center of the room, straining against the weight of its burden. Warrick stopped when he was satisfied that he had found the best light they were going to get. He and Carrie went back to the floor by the cot and retrieved the towels and the bandages Carrie had torn, the box that held the zip-lock bag, the bottle of Jim Beam, and several of the water bottles. They set them on the floor next to the chair and Warrick turned to Carrie.

"Okay. You're going to want to get as close to him as you can, and you'll need to be steady. So you need to figure what's going to work the best. Kneel, crouch, sit on your butt, what?"

Carrie stood immobile. Warrick had been adamantly against this, at first, she knew, but he had sprung into action and had handled pretty much everything so far. She had just assumed that he would handle the knife as well and that she would play nurse, comforting Nick, making sure Warrick had what he needed. It took her a while to find her voice. "_I'm_ doing this?"

Warrick looked at her straight on, his voice firm. "Yeah, Carrie, you are. You're the best one to do it. For a lot of reasons."

It wasn't just about her smaller fingers or his strength to keep Nick still. Warrick was sure that no matter what Nick said, or how much he cried out, Carrie would do what needed to be done for him, would keep going. And he wasn't sure he would.

"Come here, Carrie." Nick's voice was soft, but commanding.

Carrie knelt by Nick so her face was on a level with his. Nick looked at her, his eyes gentle. "You can do this. I trust you. No matter what happens, I trust you and I asked you to do this."

Carrie looked at him a moment, her eyes meeting his. She nodded and brought her hand up to stroke his short, thick hair. She murmured something in Nick's ear that Warrick couldn't hear, that wasn't meant for him to hear, and she kissed Nick softly on his lips.

She returned to Warrick and considered his earlier question. If she sat on her butt and straddled the chair leg, she'd be able to balance herself pretty well and would have easy access to the leg. She lowered herself down and Warrick offered his hand to her. She took it and squeezed it reassuringly before she let go. She put her legs straight out in front of her, one on the outside of the chair leg, next to Nick's leg, the other under the chair between the two legs. She scooted closer until she was satisfied she was the correct distance from the leg.

"That gonna work?" Warrick asked.

"Yep."

Warrick took one of the towels and refolded it into a smaller, thicker pad. "Lift up," he said and slid it under Carrie before she sat back down.

Warrick took the zip-lock bag out of its makeshift stand. He peeled apart the seal and held the bag out to Carrie.

"Okay. Before you put the gloves on, let 'em drip for a minute, then shake out as much of whatever's left as you can. After you get 'em on, don't touch anything but his leg."

Carrie nodded and took the gloves from the bag. As Warrick had instructed, she let the whiskey drip from them back into the bag and when nothing else was running off them, she held them away from the bag and shook them vigorously. Satisfied that they were as dry as they were going to get, she slipped them on, wincing a little as the sting of the whiskey came in contact with skin chapped from the unfamiliar, arid desert air. Warrick was watching anxiously and let out a sigh of relief when he saw the snug fit of the gloves, tight around each of her fingers.

"Don't take the knife yet. You're going to have to try and find that bullet first. If it is pressed against bone, it might have gone in at an angle and might not be right under the hole. It's in too deep, I think, for you to be able to feel it, but press down, and I think you'll be able to find out where it is."

Carrie was doubtful. "How can I know where it is if I won't be able to feel it?"

"Nick will let you know."

Carrie's mouth formed an "oh" of understanding and she glanced quickly up at Nick, but he was once again focused on the wall in front of him. If he had heard their conversation, he was pretending he hadn't.

There was some dried blood around the wound. Warrick dipped one of the khaki strips into the zip-lock bag and moistened it with the whiskey. He bent down and wiped the skin around the wound. Nick drew in a sharp breath and held it when the alcohol touched the edges of the open wound, but he made no other sound. He had decided to make it a challenge to himself, see how far he could get before he actually screamed. He figured he had a long way to go. He let the breath back out when Warrick lifted the cloth away. Okay. So far, so good.

Warrick straightened up and stood behind Nick. "Go ahead," he said to Carrie.

Carrie took her right index finger and pressed gently against the skin above the wound. Nick clenched his teeth but made no sound.

Warrick watched Carrie and shook his head. "Carrie, you're going to have to apply some pressure. We won't know anything if you don't."

Carrie said nothing, but she touched the same point again, pressing down hard, concentrating on the feel of the muscle beneath her fingertip. It was firmer than she thought it would be, and she realized quickly that Warrick was right when he said she wasn't going to be able to feel the bullet. She walked her finger around the wound, moving her finger over at quarter-inch intervals, pressing down each time. She could feel Nick's leg tremble and the muscles contract as his reflexes took over and he tried to kick out, as he had done with Warrick. But the leg was tight to the chair and had nowhere to go. Nick groaned, but Carrie didn't stop.

She had explored the left side of the wound, and now she began to work her way around the other half, next to the tibia. She could feel Nick's reaction change as she got closer to the bone. The leg spasmed instead of trembled, and his moans of pain were louder and more frequent. She could hear Warrick's low baritone soothing him, but she couldn't hear the words. She could feel the hard edge of the bone when she pressed her finger in the channel against it. She counted each time she moved her finger on this side of the wound. The fourth time she pressed down, Nick cried out and his entire body convulsed so hard the front legs of the chair rose off the floor and Warrick tipped it back down. Carrie's first reaction was to withdraw her hand, but she willed herself to keep it there, pressing even harder to see if she could feel the bullet. She couldn't, but her attempt drew a scream from Nick, and as much as she hated doing it, she dug her nail in, even through the glove making an indentation in the skin before she took her hand away.

Carrie looked up at Nick and knew what was coming next. She looked quickly for the trashcan, but they had left it by the cot. She shouted at Warrick. "Go grab the…"

It was too late. There was no place for the vomit to go when Nick hung his head except onto his bare chest. Warrick hadn't been quick enough to get the metal can, but he moved fast enough to grab the other towel from the floor and stop the mess from reaching the waistband of Nick's jeans, which had earlier been soiled by the dripping blood from his shoulder wound and was stiff with it now. There hadn't been anything solid in Nick for quite a while now, and this was mostly clear. The whiskey he had swallowed had come back up, as had the scant sip of water Carrie had coaxed him to drink. Warrick wiped it up, then moistened a clean part of the towel and cleansed Nick's skin.

"I'm sorry, Nicky," he said. "I should've known that was coming." The nausea had followed the most intense waves of pain from the beginning, but Carrie had been the one to tend to it, and she had seen this one coming before Warrick had, too, but she couldn't do anything about it from her position on the floor. She looked at Warrick now, her eyes questioning.

"Is he all right?"

Nick answered for himself. "Yeah. I guess…I guess you found out what you wanted to know."

So he _had_ heard their conversation. "Yeah, baby," Carrie said. "We did."

Nick was pale, and his eyes had watered and his nose had run when he had vomited. Warrick took a khaki cloth and wiped the tears from Nick's face and pinched the cloth over his nose.

"Blow," Warrick ordered and Nick did.

"Thanks, Mommy," Nick said, when Warrick took the cloth away.

Warrick shook his head at Nick. The guy was tough stuff. He was pretty sure if it had been him, he wouldn't be cracking jokes right now. Hell, if it had been him he'd probably still be screaming.

"You know the hard part's still coming," he said. "And you can still say no."

Nick shook his head adamantly. "No way. No way, man. So now you know where to cut, so cut." He looked down at Carrie. "Carrie, if you can't get it out, maybe you can kind of move it around with the knife. Get it off of the nerve or whatever the hell it's pressing against."

"What it's pressing against is bone," Carrie said. "And I'm not going to just wiggle it around. It's coming out."

Nick smiled at her. "That's my girl."

Carrie frowned slightly. What had happened to Nick had thrown them back ten years. They had both abandoned the promise they had made to each other as they had lain so carelessly in his bed three days ago. If they ever got out of this, she knew they would have to figure some things out. But she wasn't going to call him on it now. She was just as guilty, guiltier, she thought, as she recalled the words she had whispered in his ear, the kiss she had given him.

Warrick went back to the area by the cot and got a couple of the zip-lock bags off the floor. The trashcan was foul by now and with Nick in the chair, it was too awkward to hold under him anyway. He figured he could hold open a bag if it came to that. If it happened again, and he was betting it would if Nick didn't pass out first, at least he'd be ready this time. Warrick bent down next to Carrie and picked up the bag with the knife in it. He fished it out, holding it gingerly by the handle, careful not to touch the blade. He let the whiskey run off the honed steel, then dried the handle on one of the khaki cloths. He left the blade alone.

Carrie held out her gloved hand for it, and Warrick handed it off to her cautiously, making sure she had a firm grip on the handle before he let it go.

"Careful," Warrick cautioned her. "It's sharp. And I mean really sharp, Carrie." He lowered his voice so Nick couldn't hear. "You have to do this quick and sure. It will be harder for him if you don't. And once you start, Carrie, you're committed to it. No matter what you hear from him, or me, for that matter." He looked at her carefully. "You sure about this?"

"Yes. I can do it."

Warrick squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and grabbed up one of the khaki strips before rising to his feet. He twisted it into a rope and stood next to Nick. Before he could ask Nick once more if he was sure about this, Nick looked at him steadily and nodded his head, a signal to both Warrick and Carrie.

"Let's do it," Nick said, no waver in his voice.

Warrick held out the tan rope and Nick looked at him questioningly.

"To bite down on," Warrick explained and placed the cloth between Nick's teeth after Nick had nodded his understanding.

Carrie had sized up what she was going to do, at least initially. She wasn't too sure after that, but hoped her instincts would guide her when she needed them to. She poised the blade over the bullet hole and lined up her stroke. With one quick, certain movement she sliced deeply into the flesh and made a slash that went horizontally over the bullet hole and extended an inch out from there into the skin she had scored with her fingernail.

Nick's scream was strangled by the cloth wedged between his tightly clenched teeth. His body shook violently and Warrick strained to keep him as immobile as possible, standing behind him and wrapping his arms around Nick's chest, pressing down with his strength to keep the chair legs from skittering across the floor.

Carrie spread the lips of the newly cut flesh apart with her left hand. She could see the ridge where bone met muscle and she placed the tip of the knife against it. She plunged down slowly, the knife pressed against the side of the bone, concentrating on how the knife felt in her grip, hoping she would know it when knife contacted bullet.

Tears of agony streamed from Nick's eyes and mucous from his nose. Despite the rag in his mouth, his screams of torment bounced off the cinderblock walls. His body was in full convulsions now and it took everything Warrick had to keep the chair from bucking off the floor.

The pocketknife had a three-inch blade, and Carrie was beginning to think it wasn't enough. She was past two inches and still hadn't made contact with the bullet. She refused to think that she might have cut in the wrong place. She tried to spread wide the sides of the wound between her left thumb and forefinger, but she still couldn't see into the hole like she needed to. It was too far away from the light source and there was too much red.

Nick's eyes rolled back and his quaking body stilled. Warrick removed the cloth from Nick's slack mouth and looked at him anxiously. The color was drained from his face and his cheeks were wet with tears, his nose dripping. Warrick wiped Nick's face gently and then knelt beside Carrie. He wiped away the blood that was streaming from the wound and running down Nick's shin. He glanced at Carrie. Her hands were steady, her eyes clear. She was entirely focused on her task, and she barely took note of Warrick's presence. She drove the knife another half-inch deeper. She paused, then lifted the blade back up almost imperceptibly and brought it down again.

"I feel it," she told Warrick.

Carrie jiggled the blade against the bullet until she knew the knife had formed a barrier between bullet and bone. She applied pressure, tilting the blade back, trying to get the tip of it under the bullet. When she thought she had it, she flicked the knife forward in one quick motion. She felt the bullet shift away from the bone, but now that she had dislodged it, she wasn't quite sure how to remove it. She tried to flick it up again, and she did get it to rise about half an inch. But when she repeated the motion the bullet moved sideways and she couldn't get purchase under it again. She withdrew the knife and handed it to Warrick.

"I can't get it out with the knife." She pinched thumb and index finger together and dug into flesh. She hadn't made the cut long enough to accommodate her fingers when they widened beyond the joined fingertips. She withdrew and held out her hand for the knife. She made a deep cut an inch out on the opposite side of the wound and handed the knife back to Warrick.

This time she could push her fingers in to the depth of the bullet. She could feel its hardness underneath her gloved fingertip. She pinched her fingers around it, and it was so much slipperier than she thought it would be. It slipped from her grasp twice, then, with a final exertion of effort, she brought it to the surface.

Carrie held the bloodied bullet between her pinched fingers and stared at it. She had been rock-steady, but now her hands trembled and her face paled as she brought her left hand up to press against her lips. Warrick was quicker with her than he had been with Nick, and he grabbed one of the bags and held it out in front of her. Carrie emptied her stomach and swayed unsteadily. Warrick grasped her slim shoulders and she leaned against him, drawing deep breaths.

"I'm sorry," Carrie said, her voice not as steady as she would have liked.

"Girl," said Warrick, "you don't have anything to apologize for. What I saw you do was just…just…" He couldn't find the words to explain what he felt as he had watched her work, seeing nothing wavering or weak in her, nothing but strength and determination. "Well, you don't have anything to be sorry about."

Carrie looked at him gratefully, then set the bullet on the floor. Warrick picked it up and wiped the blood from it, then put it in his front pocket.

"Evidence," he said simply, in answer to Carrie's questioning eyes.

"Let's see if we can get the bleeding to stop," Carrie said.

Warrick wiped the blade of the knife clean with an unsoiled part of the towel he had used to clean up Nick. Then he used the knife to cut the remaining unsullied terry cloth into washcloth-sized squares. He took one of them and refolded it into a thick pad. He moistened it with the whiskey from the bottle and pressed it hard over the wound.

"I wish we had something to stitch it with," Carrie said.

Warrick smiled gently at her. They didn't, and she might as well wish they were all the hell away from here.

"It's just deep, is all," Warrick said. He could tell by the color of the blood and its already receding flow that there had been no artery or vein that was nicked or cut. "It'll stop with pressure."

He held the cloth over the wound until it was sodden, then took up another, moistened it with the whiskey, and pressed it down. After a few moments he lifted the cloth and looked hard at the wound. He was worried about infection. They had tried to be careful, and he was grateful for the antiseptic qualities of the whiskey, but conditions were not exactly ideal. And Nick had driven the blade of the knife into the bullet hole before the knife had been sterilized.

"Hold the wound open," Warrick instructed Carrie. Carrie spread apart the flesh on either side of the slash she had cut and Warrick poised the bottle of whiskey over it. He hesitated, then let the liquid stream into the gash. They heard a low moan from Nick and both looked up quickly, but his head was still hanging down, his body limp. Warrick took one more piece of the towel, folded it and moistened it, then placed it on the leg.

"Keep pressure on that," Warrick told Carrie. He took the roll of duct tape and cut off a piece with the knife. He taped down one side of the bandage and then cut off another piece of tape for the other. As he had done earlier with the shoulder wound, he made sure the tape held the cloth tight and firm over the wound. He rose to his feet and held his hand out to Carrie. She took off the gloves and dropped them on the floor, then took the offered hand and pulled herself up.

"Let's redress his shoulder." Warrick started to cautiously peel the tape off the front of Nick's shoulder, but Carrie shook her head.

"I'll do it." She worked the edge of adhesive free from the skin with her nails, then did the same to the tape at the bottom of the bandage. She grasped each one and with a quick yank tore them both off at once.

Warrick watched her in admiration. When there was something that needed to be done, she didn't mess around. Carrie lifted off the bandage and she and Warrick examined the wound. The skin was puffy where the bullet had entered and the flesh around it was showing the beginnings of a bruise where the muzzle of the gun had been twisted. Warrick gently put his fingertips alongside the hole. It felt a little warm, but not too bad. Still, he was worried about infection. Most bullet holes he had seen were in the morgue, and he wasn't exactly sure what happened to them if left untreated. And this wound had been exposed to the muzzle of a gun as well. As he had with the leg wound, Warrick let whiskey stream into the torn flesh. He knew that if Nick had been awake, this would have been excruciating, and he watched him anxiously, afraid the pain would bring him around. But Nick didn't stir and Warrick and Carrie bandaged the wound in the same manner they had the leg.

Carrie removed the tape and bandage from the back of the shoulder. The exit wound had been the one that had bled the most, the edges of the torn flesh surrounding it ragged. The bandage was heavier with blood than they had expected it to be, and Warrick gave a low whistle.

"Damn. I thought it had quit bleeding. This isn't good."

"No," Carrie agreed solemnly. "It isn't." They flushed it with the whiskey and bandaged it.

Warrick sighed heavily. They had done all they could for Nick, but he knew it wasn't enough. "Let's get him back on the cot."

As they had done before, they tipped the chair backward and dragged it. When they reached the cot, they removed the tape securing Nick to the chair and Warrick held Nick's body when it slumped forward, free of its restraints. Warrick moved the chair as close to the cot as he could get it and then tipped the chair forward and sort of just dumped Nick's upper body onto the mattress. He grabbed both of Nick's legs and swung them up onto the cot, then rolled him over so he was lying on his right side. Nick was out cold, but his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and his pulse felt strong when Warrick checked it. Carrie covered Nick with the blanket and then sat down heavily in the recently vacated chair. She felt sapped of strength, suddenly, and she braced her elbows on her knees and held her weary head in her hands. Warrick kneaded her shoulders.

"He'll be all right. You did fine, Carrie. You did everything you could."

Now he had to make sure that he was doing everything that he could. Since the moment the killer had left the room, they had been entirely focused on Nick, but now Warrick moved purposefully to the door. It was metal, like those used in industrial buildings. It wasn't locked and jiggled in its frame when Warrick grabbed the knob. He tried to pull the door open, but, unexpectedly, it opened out, not in. It opened about a quarter of an inch when he turned the knob and pushed, but then it stopped. He pushed hard, but it wouldn't budge beyond that. He remembered hearing a padlock snap shut and suspected there was a match to the steel plates and lock that were on this side of the door. There was more to it, though, he thought, recalling the sound of a bar being lowered across the door. He looked for hinges that he could take apart to get the door off, but they were mounted on the other side of the door.

As ineffectual as he knew it would be, Warrick lined up his shoulder against the door and made a half-hearted attempt at ramming against it. He stepped back several paces and tried again, this time throwing all his weight at it and getting a running start. He got nothing for his efforts except a sore shoulder, and he grimaced as he wrapped his hand around it.

"Do that again, and you'll probably dislocate it." Carrie had been watching and he glanced at her before crossing to the other side of the room and picking up the chair the victim had been in. Warrick held it by the seat, the top frame pressed into his belly, and pointed the legs at the door. With a low roar, he charged at the door. The legs bounced off the steel, the shallow dents they left imprinted in the metal barely perceptible. Carrie now stood beside him and wordlessly put her hand on his arm, then took the chair from him. She carried it back to the cot and set it by the other, frowning when she saw the vee of blood on the seat. She poured some water on it from one of the bottles, then wiped it down with the last square of the towel Warrick had cut.

"Sit," she told Warrick. "It's okay to just sit."

Warrick took a sideways glance once more at the door, then crossed the room and sat in the chair, leaning back in it wearily. Carrie took the other and the two of them sat in silence, watching Nick, waiting for him to regain consciousness.


	18. Chapter 18

Nick shifted restlessly on the cot. He had been lying on his right side since Warrick and Carrie had placed him back on the makeshift bed over two hours ago. He had drifted in and out since then, remembered their concerned faces hovering over him, remembered the coolness of the damp cloth they had placed on the lump on the back of his head. His right arm was pinned under his side, but he tried to raise his left arm to feel if the cloth was still there. The attempted motion was met with a stab of pain. His shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch. It was throbbing with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat, and his shoulder and upper arm felt like they were on fire. He drew in a sharp breath and immediately two pairs of hazel-green eyes were looking down at him.

"Hey, bud," Warrick said softly. "You all right?"

Nick tried to form words, but speech wouldn't come. His throat was dry and his tongue felt thick and out of place in his mouth, as if it didn't belong to him. But Carrie was there, to help him, as he had known she would be. She uncapped a bottle of water and supported his head while she held the bottle to his lips. Carrie tipped a small sip of water into his mouth and he swallowed with difficulty. But Carrie kept the bottle up and when Nick nodded in answer to her questioning eyes she allowed more to dribble into his mouth. He swallowed more easily this time and attempted to smile his gratitude to her, but the smile turned into a grimace when the fire once again raged in his shoulder. It felt like there were red-hot coals under the bandages.

"Nick?"

He could hear the fear in Warrick's query. "Sorry, bro." Nick found his voice, and it was raspy, but at least he could talk. "It just…just hurts like hell."

Warrick and Carrie exchanged quick glances and Warrick could see the tears well in Carrie's eyes. He looked away from her and away from Nick, away from that look of pain in those deep brown eyes that he had come to know so well. _Damn it all to hell._ It was the way he feared it would be, the way deep down inside he had known it would be. They had tortured him, mangled him, for nothing. It hadn't made any difference. He felt tears form in his own eyes, tears of frustration, tears of compassion for Nick, and he squeezed his eyes shut and willed them away. He had to be the strong one here. He forced himself to look back again at Nick.

"Is it…is it as bad as it was before?"

Nick winced. "Worse."

Warrick hung his head, knowing he and Carrie were responsible for this.

"I can barely move my arm," Nick said.

Warrick looked up sharply. "Your _arm_? Nicky, what about your leg? How's your leg feel?"

Nick cocked his head, a puzzled look on his face. How in the hell could he have not noticed that it was gone? The incapacitating, consuming pain that made his entire body convulse, the red and yellow spirals that floated in and out of his vision, the nausea. All of it, gone. Now there was just a burning sting that he hadn't noticed because he was focused on the shoulder. Just like before he hadn't noticed the shoulder because of the leg, he thought ironically. But this was nothing like that had been.

When he was a kid he had a bellyache that turned out to be nothing more than, well, a bellyache, but his mother had taken him to the doctor because he was complaining so hard that she thought he had appendicitis. The doctor had tried to assess his pain by telling him to rate it on a scale of one to ten, with one being barely there and ten being he just couldn't stand it any more and there was no way it could possibly get worse. He had rated it an eight, he remembered, and he smiled now. That bellyache was a three, tops. The leg, that had been a ten. Hell, that had been a hundred. And the shoulder? Maybe a seven. He'd take it. Seven was a lucky number. He grinned.

"You did it," Nick told Warrick. "You did it, man."

Warrick looked at Carrie and the tears she had been trying to hold back were flowing now. Tears of relief. Warrick knew just how she felt. He reached for her hand.

"Carrie did it," Warrick told Nick. "The girl's got guts. And a steady hand."

Carrie squeezed Warrick's hand and then withdrew hers, wiping the tears away from her face. She didn't feel so steady now.

Nick tried to reach out for her, but he was lying on one arm and the other was too sore to move, so he settled for smiling at her. "You did good, darlin'. Real good."

Carrie wasn't quite ready to claim a victory. She moved to the end of the cot and pulled the blanket away from Nick's leg. She tentatively ran a finger along the bottom of Nick's bare foot.

"Can you feel that?"

Nick's foot twitched. "Of course I can feel that. You didn't paralyze me, Carrie."

Warrick had been watching and he frowned. Nick's foot had moved slightly, but his toes had remained immobile. Carrie had said that the muscle the bullet was in was the one that causes the toes to come up.

"Hey, Nick? Can you move your toes? Like, point 'em up?"

Nick looked at Warrick and sighed. "You, too?'' But he complied. Or tried to. The toes did indeed slowly rise in five-digit unison, but Nick yelped and rolled onto his back, freeing his right arm. He leaned forward and grasped his leg with both hands, the fire in the left arm forgotten. He rocked in pain, and his eyes watered. Oh, yeah. This was definitely a ten.

Carrie was at his side, her hand rubbing his hunched back. She could feel him holding his breath. "Nick. Breathe, baby. Blow out your breath."

Nick obeyed and huffed out the air in his lungs. Warrick let his out, too, found he had been holding it when the pain had seized Nick. He was hoping he would never see Nick in that kind of agony again. Nick's hands fell away from his leg and Warrick could see, as Carrie could feel, the tension leave his body as he began to relax.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, bro." Warrick put his hand on Nick's back, next to Carrie's.

Nick shrugged under their touch. "At least we know they work. But I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a while. Like the doc says, 'If it hurts when you do that, then don't do that.' ''

Warrick tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. "You wanna lie back down?"

Nick shook his head. "Nah. Arm's about numb from lying on it. Fluff my pillow and prop me up, Nurse Brown."

Now Warrick did smile and he shook out the pillow as Carrie helped ease Nick back to lean against the wall at the head of the cot. Warrick put the pillow behind him lengthwise so it would cushion both his head and his injured shoulder. He remembered the last time he had tried to help Nick as he struggled to sit upright, with Nick cursing him and pushing him away. That seemed so long ago now, like another day, even. Time had become disjointed since he and Carrie had entered this room. He looked at his watch. They had been here since about 6:30, he figured, and the killer had left them less than an hour after that. It was going on eleven now.

Warrick wondered what the killer was doing while he was waiting for that stretch of time between midnight and dawn when his pre-selected dumpsite became deserted enough to safely dispose of the body. Had he gone home, made dinner, watched TV, all while the white van with the plastic-wrapped body inside was parked innocuously in his drive? Warrick didn't know, but he did know that whatever he had done, was doing now, he had done many times before. Carrie had said he wouldn't veer from his routines if he could help it. Warrick figured that when he came back here it would be right after he dumped the body, before daybreak.

"We should get some sleep," Warrick said. "I don't think he'll be back here until almost daylight."

Carrie nodded. "Yes. After he dumps the body."

She moved to the door and reached for the bank of four light switches that controlled the overhead fluorescents. She experimented flicking them on and off until she had the bank of lights near the front of the room on and all the others off, including those over the cot. The newly dimmed room made her feel suddenly lethargic. It felt like giving in, somehow, to just tuck themselves in and wait. She glanced ruefully at the four harmless dents in the door that the chair legs had made when Warrick tried to ram it. What else was there to do but wait?

Warrick crossed the room to the sink and Carrie could hear his stream of water hitting the metal of the basin. She envied him his easy solution to his problem and knew she'd have to find her own answer soon. Warrick came back and sat in one of the chairs, his feet propped up on the edge of the cot. He closed his eyes immediately and in minutes he was already breathing heavily. Carrie smiled in sympathy. He was just plain worn down, and now that he knew Nick was okay for now, he had given in to his exhaustion.

It was cold in this cavernous room of cement walls and floor, and Carrie took the blanket from the end of the cot, where she had turned it down to look at Nick's leg. She shook it out and draped it back over him, watching him with concern. Nick was awake, eyes open. He acknowledged the worried look on her face. He grabbed her hand, held it.

"It's going to be okay, Carrie. There's only pain in the leg if I move it, which is a hell of an improvement over what it was. I'll be okay. We'll all be okay."

Carrie squeezed Nick's hand in what she hoped was a reassuring or at least brave sort of way and then kissed him lightly on the cheek. She looked around the room, not ready to settle in until she had tidied up the remnants of the horror they had been submerged in these last hours. She put on a clean pair of the disposable gloves and then tore off one of the white garbage sacks. She carefully dumped the contents of the metal can into it. She picked up the sealed zip-lock bag Warrick had held out for her and put that in as well. Then she dropped in the bloodied pieces of cloth and the latex gloves she had worn earlier. She tied the sack off in a knot and set it against the wall farthest from the cot.

She got a new trash bag and lined the inside of the can with it, then gave a backward glance over her shoulder at Warrick and Nick, who both had their eyes closed. With deft hands she removed the gloves and quickly pulled down slacks and panties and squatted over the can, shaking her head in wonder at both her own ingenuity and the circumstances that forced her to call upon it. She knotted this sack as well and set it next to the other, then tore off one more of the white bags and once again lined the round metal can. She figured Nick was going to be next, but since getting to the sink as Warrick had was out of the question, this would have to do.

Carrie brought the can back to the cot and set it down. She was going to ask Nick if he needed to use it, but his eyes were still closed and he seemed to be sleeping. Sleep was sounding pretty good to her, too. She picked up the towel that was still intact, the one that had provided her padding when she was tending to Nick's leg, and draped it over her shoulders before settling into the chair next to Warrick. She took one more glance at Nick, hugged the towel close around her, and allowed herself to close her eyes.

Nick had his eyes closed, but he wasn't asleep. Regardless of what he had told Carrie, he knew that he wasn't okay, and that he wasn't going to be okay. He could tolerate the burning pain in his leg if he didn't move it in any way that would use the injured muscle, and that pretty much meant that he didn't move it, period. And he had mostly lost the use of his left arm as well. So no matter how he tried to frame it otherwise, he knew he wasn't getting off of this damn cot. When that monster came back, would this become his deathbed? He shuddered and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. The black water pipes cast shadows back up to the white ceiling tiles, and he focused on them, trying to make his mind empty. There were tiny black dots on the tiles—no, tiny holes in them, he decided—and he watched how the pipe shadows obscured some of them but how others were so distinct, even in the soft light, that he could count the rows of dots on each tile. The tiles were…

"Warrick!"

Warrick didn't move, but Carrie jumped from her chair in alarm, the towel falling to a snowy heap onto the floor. "What is it? Is it worse?"

"Get Warrick. I need Warrick."

Carrie rushed to Warrick's side and shook him, not gently, awake. "It's Nick," she told him. "Something's wrong."


	19. Chapter 19

Warrick had been sleeping deeply when Carrie shook him awake. He blinked hard a few times and then sprang to his feet when it registered what she was saying. He bent over Nick, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

"Nicky? What is it? You okay?"

Nick didn't look at Warrick, but kept his eyes focused on the ceiling.

"The ceiling tiles, Warrick."

Warrick looked up, confused. "The tiles?"

Nick nodded, this time looking at Warrick. "Check 'em out, man. I think they're removable."

Warrick looked up once more. Each tile was framed by metal strips, and he was pretty sure Nick was right. If he pushed up on a tile he was betting he would find nothing holding it down except its position on the metal frame.

"Hold on. I think you're on to something."

He pulled a chair over to the nearest workbench and used it to climb up onto the top of the surface. With an effortless long-armed stretch, he placed his palms flat against a tile. He pushed up and the tile easily popped out of place. He balanced the tile on his palms and moved it to rest atop the adjoining rectangle. He peered up into the hole.

"Turn all the lights on," he told Carrie.

Carrie flicked the switches on the bank by the door and then stood by Warrick, looking up at him expectantly.

"See anything?"

Warrick shook his head. "Hand that chair up."

Carrie grasped the back of the chair and raised it to meet Warrick's outstretched hands. He set it on the top of the bench and climbed onto it. With the added height he could easily get his head into the hole, but his shoulders were too broad for the narrow space. The rectangular gap in the ceiling was about twelve by eighteen inches, and it wasn't quite big enough. Even if he could wedge himself into it, he could see there wouldn't be enough clearance to accommodate him if he tried to actually hoist himself up onto the tiles.

"Some wiring," he reported. "Some ductwork, but I think only in the center of the ceiling. It's too dark to see the length of the room."

He got off the chair and lowered it down to Carrie, then jumped down to it and then to the floor. He centered the chair near the door and stepped up onto it, but this time, despite his stretch, he could not reach the tiles. Carrie crossed the room and returned with the heavy cardboard cylinder that the plastic sheeting had been wrapped around. She handed it to Warrick.

"Try this."

Warrick took the tube from her and smiled. The girl was resourceful, and he admired that. He used the tube to punch a tile out from its frame, and then he moved the chair and punched another out of place. He moved three more, concentrating on the area nearest the workbench by the door. He moved the chair to the workbench and, as he had done before, climbed onto it and then onto the wooden surface of the bench. He reached up and popped out a tile. Carrie handed him up the chair and he stepped onto it, poking his head into the hole he had created. Now there were shafts of light entering through the other holes and he could see with ease.

He withdrew his head and turned to Nick. "Nick, the first beer's on me when we get out of here. There's no barrier at the wall. It just keeps on going."

Nick grinned. "Microbrew, on tap."

"You got it."

Warrick got off the chair and then knelt down on his knees and held his hand down to Carrie. "Get up here. I can't get in there. Let's find out what we've really got."

Carrie grasped his hand and Warrick pulled her up to the bench. He steadied her as she climbed onto the chair and reached up for the hole.

"Okay," Warrick said. "It's too small for me, but I think there's a big enough gap between the ceiling of this room and the floor of the next that you should be able to scoot on your belly. Don't go too far or you'll lose the light. Just go far enough so that you're sure you've cleared this room. I think the ductwork is going to stop you from getting directly to the other side of the door, into the hallway, but knock out some tiles, see if you can tell where you are. You ready?"

"Piece of cake," Carrie said lightly. She gripped the edges of the frames with her hands and then pulled herself up into the hole as Warrick held her around her legs and hoisted her up. Narrow shoulders disappeared into the hole followed by slim hips and long legs. Warrick looked at Nick and grinned. Thank heaven for willowy barrel racing girls.

Warrick could hear Carrie scooting across the tiles and waited nervously when the sound stopped. It resumed several minutes later and he could hear Carrie pulling herself forward on palms and elbows on her return trip. He reached up and grasped her legs when he saw them dangling out of the hole. He pulled her out gently and then eased her back down to the floor before jumping down himself.

"Well?" This from Nick, who was feeling a little too removed from the action.

Carrie dusted herself off and walked over to him, Warrick following.

"Couldn't get to the hallway," Carrie said. "But I got to the next room. It's much smaller than this one. Lined with empty shelving. No windows, one door." She looked at them triumphantly. "Partly open."

Nick smiled at her. "Okay, darlin'. Be careful when you jump down. The door will lead into the hallway. Take a look at this door, but I'm thinking there's not much you can do about it. I'm pretty sure there's a bar across it and a padlock on it. But get up the stairs to the outside door and that one should be open."

Warrick remembered the killer barely pausing at the head of the stairs as he herded his captives, remembered hearing the sound of the door swing freely open. "It's not locked," he confirmed.

"There you go, then," Nick said to Carrie. "Easy. You just go up those stairs and then you just…go get help."

Carrie looked at him, uncertainly Warrick thought, and he smiled at her encouragingly. "Piece of cake."

But Carrie's eyes welled up and she turned away from them, then walked quickly, almost running, to the opposite side of the room and sank down to her knees against the wall. Warrick and Nick could see her shoulders shake with silent sobs and they looked at each other in confusion. Nick tried to get off the cot to go to her, but he moaned in pain and Warrick held him firmly back down.

"I got it."

He went over to Carrie and knelt beside her, touching her shoulder gently.

"Hey. What's all this? This is a good thing, Carrie." He tried to joke with her. "You're not going to fall apart on me now, are you, when a good thing comes along?"

But Carrie only shook her head and cried harder. Warrick glanced over at Nick and saw him once again try, and fail, to get up. He had told Nick he had this, and he'd better make good his word.

"Carrie. Talk to me now. What is it?"

Finally Carrie looked up at him, face streaked with tears. "I can't do this," she said softly.

Warrick lowered his voice, too, knowing that she didn't want Nick to hear. "Sure you can. Hell, girl, if you can dig a slug out of someone's leg, you can do this easy. If you can't get the door to this room open, no sweat. You can still get outside and go for help."

"I _can't_. I can't, Warrick. I can't leave him here. I won't." She looked at Warrick, hazel eyes begging him to understand. "I'm not leaving here without Nick."

Warrick drew in his breath sharply. For a few seconds he could smell freshly turned earth, could feel cold night air on his face. He closed his eyes and then slowly opened them to meet Carrie's. He put his arm around her.

"I know how hard this is. Believe me, Carrie, I do. But you have to leave him to help him."

Carrie shook her head in frustration. "You don't _understand_. What if that son of a bitch comes back while I'm gone, before I get some help to come here? I can't be gone when he comes back. I can't, Warrick. I have to be here with Nick in case he comes back. If he comes back and I'm not here, I'll never…I'll never see Nick again. I can't leave him!"

Warrick could hear the rising desperation in her voice, and he knew she wasn't thinking this through. She only knew she wanted to be with Nick if the killer came back, but she couldn't see that Nick's only chance was her leaving. He looked at her steadily, his voice firm.

"Carrie. This was never about Nick. It was--it is--about you. It's you that bastard wants to get to. Nick is just…just the way he's doing that. He hurt Nick because he knew that would hurt you. If you _are _here when he comes back, then he's going to want to see your reaction to whatever else he does to Nick."

Warrick knew the best way to reach her now was to call it what it was. "If you're here, then Nick gets…tortured."

Carrie winced at the word, but Warrick was unrelenting. "Are you hearing this? I don't know what will happen to Nick if that fucker gets to him before help comes, but I do know that whatever it is, it's going to be quicker for him than what's going to happen if you're here to watch. I have no doubts about that, Carrie."

It was harsh, and Warrick knew it. The color had drained from Carrie's face and for a second Warrick thought she might be sick. But she had stopped crying and her voice was steady, if self-recriminating, when she spoke.

"Oh, God. I'm so selfish."

Warrick tightened his grip around her shoulder. "That's the last thing I ever would have called you. But what you are is…in love with him."

It was too late to deny it, and she didn't try. She had told Nick once that she would always love him, and she always had. If she had fallen _in _love with him again, despite her earlier attempts at caution, then that's the way it was. She wouldn't back away from it now. Silently, Carrie struggled to her feet and Warrick helped her up. She looked over to Nick, who was watching her worriedly.

"Come here, Carrie." It was the second time that night Nick had summoned her, and as before, she came to him.

Warrick watched. He knew it was private, but he couldn't seem to look away. He could hear their low, murmuring voices, but he couldn't hear the words. Nick used his knuckles for leverage on either side of his hips to prop himself further up against the wall, then reached out for Carrie's hand and pulled her close. The cot was narrow, but she sat on the edge of it, her head on a level with his. She touched his face and her fingers played in his hair. Nick said something to her and then reached to trace a tear with his finger as it slid down her cheek. He put his hand on the back of her neck, removing the tie that still held her hair away from her face. The hair fell loose around her shoulders and Nick ran his fingers through the dust-colored strands. His hand fisted in the hair and he drew her down to him.

Warrick knew what it was he was watching. It wasn't meant for him to see, but he didn't avert his gaze. What he was watching were two lovers who had no way of knowing if they would ever see each other again. The kiss was long. Long and full of longing, Warrick thought. He could see the hunger in it, the passion, the rebirth of the love the two of them had once shared. On another day he would have given a low whistle and wondered if they were ever going to come up for air. But not this day. This day he just felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss for the two of them, and unexpectedly, a sense of loss for himself. He knew he had never kissed a woman with that kind of emotion, not even with Tina.

They broke the kiss, finally, and looked at each other silently. Carrie said something to him and he answered, then kissed her, softly, one more time. Carrie straightened up and then returned to Warrick. Ever practical, she tied her hair back again so it wouldn't get in the way when she was crawling along the tiles.

"I'm ready," she said firmly.

Warrick reached into his front pocket and took out the knife. He handed it to her. He wasn't sure where they were, but he knew it was remote and he was betting it was on the fringes of the rougher part of town. It was approaching midnight and he had no way of knowing how far she'd have to walk to seek help.

Carrie tried to give it back to him. "You keep it. Maybe if he comes back you can…"

Warrick shook his head. "No. If he comes back in here it's going to be with his gun pointed. That trumps a pocketknife. You take it. I'd feel better about it."

Carrie shrugged nonchalantly and put the knife into her front pocket. Warrick looked at the short-sleeved shirt she was wearing and wished she had a jacket, or he had one to give her. The day had been warm for November, and he had left his in his truck when he had walked to Nick's door. The lack of cloud cover during the day would make the autumn night air cold and crisp, and he suspected it was in the forties outside. It wasn't much warmer than that in here.

"It's cold out," he said.

"I won't be out long. I'll be all right, Warrick. I'll get help and everything will be fine."

Warrick knew she was convincing herself, not him, but he played along.

"You bet it will."

He looked at her. He had asked Nick a question four days ago that Nick refused to answer. But now, after seeing them together, after seeing the kiss, he had to know.

"Hey, Carrie? What happened to you and Nick? Before, I mean."

She was silent, and he thought that she, like Nick, wasn't going to answer. But she had only been considering her reply.

"We loved each other too much," she said finally.

Warrick cocked his head, puzzled. He was beginning to understand what it was like to not love someone enough, but he didn't see how you could love someone too much.

"It scared me," Carrie said, trying to explain. "I was young. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted. He asked me to marry him and I wasn't sure. I left him."

She glanced at Nick, but he was looking back up at the ceiling. "I hurt him, Warrick. A lot. I'm not sure he ever got over it."

"Nick knows how to get over being hurt," Warrick said with certainty.

Carrie shook her head. Warrick didn't know his friend as well as she thought he did. "No. Nick knows how to be cautious, how to put up defenses. It's not the same thing."

Warrick ratted himself out. "He didn't look too cautious a few minutes ago."

Carrie blushed in spite of herself, and Warrick felt a little guilty. But he wasn't ready to give it up just yet.

"What about now?"

"Now?"

"Yeah. Do you know what you want now?"

Carrie looked once more at Nick and then back at Warrick. "Yeah," she said softly. "I know what I want now. That doesn't mean I can have it."

"I think it probably does," Warrick argued. "I'm willing to bet that when you want something and go after it, you get it. When we get out of here, Carrie, go after what you want. You deserve that."

Carrie stood on tiptoes and kissed Warrick on the cheek. "You're a good man, Warrick. Take care of him until I get back, huh? Try to keep him hydrated."

"You bet. Come on. Let's do this."

He took her hand and led her to the workbench near the door, and they repeated the now-familiar motions of climbing onto it. Carrie took one more look at Nick and he reciprocated this time, smiling and nodding encouragingly to her. Carrie returned his smile and then climbed onto the chair and prepared to enter the hole. Nick watched her slowly disappear into it, and when the soles of her shoes had vanished he blew out a breath and drew his hand across his eyes. He knew this was the way it had to be, but, with apologies to Warrick, he also knew it was going to be a tough haul without her. He could only hope that the next time someone crossed the threshold of this room it would be his rescuer and not his killer.


	20. Chapter 20

Grissom arrived at the lab a few hours before the graveyard shift started. He had focused so much of his energies on the serial cases that his desk was becoming clogged with paperwork from his duties as supervisor. He intended to see if he could find the top of his desk by the time the rest of the team came in. They had not all been together since the gathering in the layout room a few days ago, and he was looking forward to having "his guys" back with him. Nick had been working days for the past two shifts, and Grissom had seen him only briefly, but he was relieved that there were apparently no hard feelings and Nick was in fact in better humor than Grissom had seen him since Dr. Brighton's arrival.

Grissom had put Warrick on yesterday's day shift with Nick so they could conduct interviews. Dr. Brighton had been working with Nick and Warrick, going with them to the interviews and twice back to the dumpsites, making herself visible, Sofia Curtis and two uniforms carefully watching from the sidelines. So far there had been no hint that the killer was watching her. She, too, would be in for the graveyard.

He stopped at the front desk and checked with Judy, the receptionist, for messages. She gave him a small stack, most of them from Tina Brown, he noticed. Grissom wondered why she was leaving messages for him instead of her husband, but he'd give her a call when he got to his office. He hoped she wasn't going to tell him Warrick was coming down with the flu or something. He had turned to leave when Judy called him back. She held a manila envelope out to him.

"This came for Dr. Brighton earlier. Could you get it to her when she comes in?"

Grissom took it from her carefully, holding it gingerly by the top edge. It was a 5" x 7" envelope, padded, with no return address. It was addressed to Dr. Caroline Brighton in care of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, 3057 Westfall Avenue. Grissom felt his heart beat erratically.

"When did this come?"

Judy took out a clipboard and checked the records. "Four-thirty this afternoon. Citixpress courier service; the one on Mojave Road."

Grissom hoped his voice sounded calm. "Can you get me contact information for Dr. Brighton?"

Judy flipped through a Rolodex and removed the card that the psychologist had filled out the day she arrived. It was the required information that anyone who was going to be out in the field was asked to provide, even if they were not permanent employees: temporary and permanent address, medical conditions and medications, notification numbers in case of an emergency. And in two squares at the bottom of the card, inked fingerprints.

Grissom nodded his thanks and walked quickly to his office. He swept aside a pile of papers and set the envelope carefully onto his desk, then reached inside for a pair of gloves and put them on. He tried to convince himself he was being overly cautious, a reaction to the photos he had seen of the packages that had arrived in Atlanta and Denver. This envelope was small and innocent-looking enough. It certainly could not have held a dead cat. It was probably nothing he needed to know about, and he should probably just wait and give it to her and let her open it, since it was, after all, her mail. Dr. Brighton's colleagues knew she was here. It wasn't unusual that she might receive mail at the lab. But he knew he was fooling himself. This had come from within the city, not Atlanta, and it had no return address, which was not a good sign.

With hands not quite as steady as he would have liked, Grissom got the Xacto knife from his desk drawer and slit open the top of the envelope. He turned it upside down over the cleared spot on his desktop and shook out the contents. A half-sheet of white paper fluttered out and a gold ring rolled out. He caught the ring just in time from tumbling off the edge of the desk. He recognized the ring as soon as his fingers grasped it, and he suddenly felt his legs give out from under him. He plopped heavily into the chair and sat, looking at the floor, not wanting to look again at the evidence he had clutched in his hand, not wanting it to be real.

But it was real. Even through the latex gloves he could feel the rough texture of the square design at the top of the ring, could feel the smoothness of the metal at the base. He had seen the ring nearly every day for almost a decade and could have described it just by the feel of it in his hand. He unclenched his fist and let the ring fall to the desk, next to the piece of paper. He picked up the paper and read the few words on it, printed with blue ink in careful block letters. "This time you'll watch it happen."

Grissom felt his head pound and he blew out a cleansing breath. He wouldn't allow himself more of a reaction than that, and he quickly took off the gloves and reached for the phone. He had many calls to make. The first familiar numbers he punched with pulse racing, speeding up with each unanswered ring. On the sixth ring the answering machine picked up. "Hey, it's Nick. I'm not here, but you know how the machine works. Catch ya later." Grissom left a message for Nick to call him back as soon as he could, but he knew even as he was saying it that Nick wasn't going to hear it. He called Nick's cell, too, but that went to voice mail and he left a message there as well.

For the second call, he looked at the card Judy had given him and pressed the numbers to Caroline Brighton's hotel. He was surprised to learn that she was not a guest there, and with difficulty, identifying himself and threatening a warrant, he managed to speak to a supervisor who consulted records and told him she had checked out two days ago via the express check-out service. Grissom decided that she must have relocated to a hotel closer to the lab. He called the cell number on the card, but, as with his call to Nick's cell, the call went to voice mail. He left a message, urgently telling her to call him back and to stay put, that Brass would be sending over a uniform as soon as she let them know where she was.

Brass. That was the next call he should make. Then Catherine. He had noticed that she and Dr. Brighton had gotten friendly and he hoped Catherine knew what hotel she had relocated to. He found Brass at the station, as he had known he would. The guy went home less often than he did, and that was saying something. Grissom had barely finished telling him about finding Nick's ring in the envelope when Brass cut him off.

"I'm going over to Nicky's. You and your team meet me there."

The call to Catherine was more complicated. He could hear the panic in her voice and she tried to disguise it by grilling him for details. She wanted to know exactly when the package had come, exactly what the note had said, exactly when he had seen Nick last. He tried to be patient with her, but time was not on his side. Assuming Nick was taken shortly before the package was delivered, he had been gone at least six or seven hours. If he had been taken after he arrived home yesterday, they could be looking at more than twenty-four hours gone.

"Catherine, I can tell you more when I see you. Get your kit and go straight to Nick's. Brass is there and I'm heading out soon. We have to find Dr. Brighton. Whatever that madman has in store for Nick, he wants her there to watch it. She checked out of her hotel. Did she tell you where she's staying now?"

Catherine shook her head and then realized that Grissom couldn't see it. "No, but I think I know. I'll meet you at Nick's. Did you call everyone else?"

He remembered the messages he had from Tina Brown. "Not yet. I'll call Warrick. You round up Greg and Sara. Tell them to go to Nick's."

As soon as Catherine hung up, Grissom called Warrick at his house. He needed Warrick and hoped he wasn't too sick to come in. But it wouldn't matter anyway, Grissom knew. There was no way Warrick was going to stay home if he thought Nick was in danger. The phone was answered on the second ring, and Tina Brown lit into him as soon as she heard his voice. It was a while before he could say anything except responses to her.

"No, I don't know why he's not returning your calls. He's not out in the field. I understand, but I don't have him working a double. Yes, I know. I know he works hard. No, I didn't ask him to come in early. I don't know. He worked the day shift with Nick yesterday and I haven't seen him since. Look, maybe he just went out for a while and doesn't have his cell or the battery's dead. There's no reason to think he won't be here when his shift starts in a few hours. When did you last see him?"

What she told him next made his blood run cold. "Did you call there? Okay, okay. Calm down. I'm on my way over there now. I'll call you as soon as I know anything. No, stay put. I'll call. I promise."

Grissom's anxiety, which he thought was at its peak when he had seen Nick's ring and read the note intended for Dr. Brighton, was on the rise as he drove to Nick's. He tried to tell himself that there were dozens of reasons why Warrick and Caroline Brighton weren't answering their phones, but as soon as Nick's house came into view, his suspicions were confirmed. Nick's truck and Dr. Brighton's rental were parked in the driveway. Warrick's truck was parked on the street in front of the house. He felt the butterflies in his stomach flutter crazily. He knew before he parked on the street and walked up to the house that he was missing two CSIs and a visiting psychologist. And that son of a bitch killer had them.

Brass and two uniformed officers were standing next to the cars in the drive, peering into windows with flashlights. Grissom walked up next to Brass, camera slung around his neck, kit and flashlight in hand.

"Anything?"

Brass shook his head. "No. They're all locked up tight. Nothing looks unusual."

"Did you try to get in the house yet?"

Brass shifted uncomfortably. "No. I thought I'd wait for you guys. There's…uh…evidence…by the front door."

Grissom moved to the sidewalk that led to the front of the house and trained his light on the two red pools near the door, one too bright red, the other not red enough, both colors leaving splatters on the cement steps. But he also saw a paper sack of groceries lying on its side, its contents spilled out onto the stoop. He saw the broken jar and the broken bottle, both now empty.

"It's not blood, you know," Grissom told Brass. "It's dinner. Red wine and spaghetti sauce."

Brass hoped the relief he felt wasn't visible to Grissom. "I know that. What am I, a moron?" Brass bristled. "I just thought you guys would want to take a look at it before we step all over it."

Grissom looked at him harshly. "Don't step all over it." He studied the colored pools intently, hoping someone _had _stepped in them, but there were no prints leading away from them. He began to take photos of the spilled groceries, of the loaf of bread sticking part way out of the sack; of the carton of ice cream, sodden with the seepage of its white liquid contents; of the tomato that had rolled down the steps and come to a bruised stop a few feet down the walk. He turned and looked out across the street when he heard three vehicles pull up to the curb almost simultaneously, three doors open and close, and three very worried CSIs cross the street and stand in front of him. One of them--Sara, he thought--drew in her breath sharply and Brass reassured her quickly.

"Not blood. Wine and spaghetti sauce."

Like Brass had done, Sara let out a sigh of relief and now she looked to Grissom. "What do we know?"

Grissom looked at the three of them, his voice steady and all business. "The envelope with the ring was delivered by a courier service at four-thirty this afternoon. No return address. The note indicated that the killer is going to try to take Dr. Brighton, that he wants her to witness whatever he has planned for Nick. Don't know yet when he took Nick. Could have been shortly before the envelope was delivered, could have been anytime after he got off the dayshift yesterday. He could be missing going on thirty hours."

"I don't think so," Catherine said. She had a hunch, and the knowledge that Carrie had checked out of her hotel a few days ago, coupled with her car parked in the drive, was going a long way toward giving it foundation. She started to say more but was interrupted by Greg, pointing to the black truck parked in front of the house.

"Isn't that Warrick's truck on the street?"

Grissom cleared his throat. "Yes, it is." He might as well get it over with. "I talked to Warrick's wife. Nick had asked both of them yesterday to come to dinner, but apparently she had to work so Warrick was going to go alone."

"What time did Nick tell him to come?" Catherine asked.

"Between 5 and 6, his wife said. He was to be back home at nine, when she got off work. But he never made it home."

"She didn't come by here to check on him?" Greg asked.

Grissom shook his head. "She called. When no one answered she figured he and Nick both had gone into work early and were out in the field."

Greg, Sara, and Catherine were silent, each processing the information Grissom had given them, processing the implications of that information.

"I doubt Warrick was an intended target," Grissom said. "It's obvious someone was surprised outside the house while bringing in the groceries. Nick had already been taken, and Warrick wouldn't have done the shopping, so…"

"So the creep was lurking around for Dr. Brighton, catches her off guard and she drops the sack, and then Warrick…just shows up at the wrong time," Greg concluded.

"I think so," Grissom agreed. "Maybe arrived as Dr. Brighton was being confronted?"

Greg was still trying to put it all together. "So, Nick somehow talks her into coming by to cook dinner for him and Warrick? Good for him, I guess. I couldn't get her to go out for a cup of coffee."

Sara and Catherine exchanged glances, but both remained silent.

Brass was growing impatient. "You got the pictures you need out here? It seems to me we might just want to go in that house."

Grissom put on a pair of gloves, which he had not yet done, and walked up the steps. He reached for the doorknob and turned it.

"It's locked. And I'm guessing the alarm is set."

"We'll call the company. Let 'em know we're here. Then I guess we break it in." Brass sighed, not looking forward to bashing in Nick Stokes's front door for the second time in his career.

Sara rescued him. "You don't need to. I have a key. The code, too."

The others looked at her in surprise, and Grissom pursed his lips and cocked an eyebrow. "_You_ have a key to Nick's house?"

Sara glanced at him and then frowned slightly and looked away from him to the others. "No big deal. I actually got it from Warrick. He was supposed to be on plant-watering duty last time Nick went back to Texas, but he couldn't do it and handed it off to me."

Sara had taken to transferring her fabric trifold wallet to the pocket of her vest or pants when she was out in the field to save herself the hassle of figuring out what to do with her purse. She reached for it now and the others watched expectantly as the Velcro rasped apart and she withdrew a white business card. Veggie Delight in Chinatown was one of the few vegetarian restaurants in the city that would deliver without a minimum order, and the card was well worn. But for the moment Sara was more interested in the key that was taped to the card and the security code that was written on the back of it.

Grissom held out his hand. "Let's have it."

Sara extended it out to him, but Brass grabbed it.

"You know the drill. You hang back until the premises are secured. We're not changing things up now."

He took the key off the card and nodded to the two patrol officers. They stood behind Brass, one holding a drawn gun, the other a flashlight. Brass unlocked the door, let Grissom's gloved hand turn the knob, drew his gun, and entered the darkened room. He handed the card to the officer with the light, who reached for the buttons of the security system but stopped at a loud "ahem" from Grissom, who tossed him a glove. The officer put the glove on and quickly disarmed the system. The three officers moved swiftly through the small house, and when Brass was satisfied all was secure, he came back to the front door.

"Okay." Brass gave Grissom the all clear. "You want the lights on?" The answer seemed to vary with the situation, except Brass could never figure out what the variables were. So he had given up second-guessing and had learned to just ask.

"Yep."

Brass reached into his suit pocket and grabbed a handkerchief. He pinched it between his fingers as he turned on one of the lamps by the sofa and the overheads in the hall and kitchen. The two officers went back outside, but the small room was crowded with the five of them.

"All right," Grissom said. "Catherine and I will do a quick walk-through, see if anything catches our eye. Then we'll go from there."

When Grissom said quick, he meant it, Catherine thought as she gloved up. He barely paused as he went in and back out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He opened the first door in the hall, the extra bedroom where Nick kept weight-training and exercise equipment, and barely poked his head in. But he slowed down considerably when he opened the next door and entered the master bedroom. Catherine flicked on the light and the two of them surveyed the room. The bed was neatly made and the room tidy. There was a closed suitcase propped against a wall, and Grissom opened it. It was empty and he closed it back up and put it back where he had found it.

Grissom opened the closet and stood in front of it, studying its contents. Catherine saw what he did. Pastel blouses, skirts and tailored slacks, a few dresses were flanked on either side by Nick's shirts. Grissom said nothing, closing the closet door and leaving the room to enter the bathroom. Catherine saw his brows arch when he looked at the cosmetics, lotions, hairbrush and toothbrush neatly lined up on the counter on one side of the sink. He peered into the small wastebasket between the toilet and sink and Catherine shook her head. She had an uncomfortable feeling that they had crossed the boundary between looking for probative evidence and invading Nick's privacy.

"Are we done here?" she asked, knowing her voice was sharp.

"No," Grissom told her. "I want any…evidence…from both the bedroom and bathroom collected. Greg or I can do that while you…"

Catherine was quick to interrupt. "No. I'm going to do it." She wasn't going to back down on this one. She knew that Nick would not want a buddy like Greg poking around his bedroom and he most definitely would not want Grissom to do it. But she was pretty sure that of the four of them, he would be most comfortable with her. She had taken on the role once before of delving into Nick's private life, his love life, and he had accepted it then. She was fairly sure he would accept it now if he knew what his other options were.

She went back to the living room to get the kit she had left by the door and found the others in the middle of a conversation.

"Okay, that explains what might have happened to her, but I don't get why he wanted Nick," Greg was saying.

Brass offered his take. "He has a vendetta against her or something. Maybe he thinks he can get a reaction out of her or whatever he's after if she has to watch someone…" He almost said "suffer," but then remembered it was Nicky they were talking about and stopped himself.

"Yeah, I get that," Greg said. "But why Nick?"

Catherine could be quiet no longer. "The killer's escalating. He's going after what he knows she cares about, and the stakes are bigger each time. In Atlanta, it was her pet. In Denver, much worse. It was her friend. And now…now he's taken her…"

"Lover." Grissom had entered the room and Greg and Brass stared at him with stunned expressions while Catherine and Sara simply nodded their agreement.

"Wow," Greg said. "She's been here what, a week? Ol' Nick moved faster than I gave him credit for. I guess she was doing more for him than cooking him spaghetti."

"Shut up, Greg." Sara's voice was harsh, and Greg looked sufficiently chagrined. He knew as soon as he said the remark that it was sophomoric and out of place, but as it often happened with him, nerves got the best of his common sense and his lamebrain tongue took over.

"It's not the way you think," Sara told him. "They already knew each other. They were in a relationship back in Texas."

The light went on for Grissom. That explained a lot, especially Nick's reaction in the layout room a few days ago. Things would have been so much easier, so much clearer, if Nick had just talked to him then, instead of putting up his walls. If he had known then, would he have put the pieces together, told Nick that his involvement with Dr. Brighton put him at risk, told him to watch his back? Would he have tried to protect him, save him from whatever was happening to him now?

"One thing's for certain," Brass said. "She was right about that bastard watching her. He knew she had left the hotel and was staying here. He knew to go after Nicky to get to her."

"But why send her the ring?" Sara wondered. "He had to have known that as soon as she saw it, she was going to have police protection. It would have made it harder to get to her. And she never got a chance to see it anyway."

"She worked the day shifts the past two days," Grissom said. "He expected her to again. He wanted her to see it. Why did he send it? To play her. To imagine her reaction."

"But Sara's right," Greg said. "It would have made it harder to get to her."

"I don't think he cared," Grissom said. "Maybe he even wanted it to be challenging. He probably took her a lot more easily than he thought he was going to."

"Yeah," Brass said. "And got Warrick as a bonus."

Grissom sighed. "Okay. Let's just get this done. I didn't see any keys or cell phones when I did the walk-through, and I'm fairly sure all three of them were taken as they were either entering or leaving this house. I doubt he was ever inside here. The set alarm would indicate that. Still, Greg and Sara, I want you to look around more carefully for car keys or any indication any of them may have been taken from here. Then, walk the perimeter. After that, start interviewing the neighbors. Go ten houses out from this one, both sides of the house, both sides of the street. We might not get lucky with Nick, but if Dr. Brighton and Warrick were taken around suppertime, that's a busy time in a neighborhood. Somebody might have seen something."

"I can help with that," Catherine offered. "That's a lot of interviews."

Grissom shook his head. "I thought you were going to process the bedroom and bathroom."

"Look, Gil, I don't think…"

Grissom cut her off. He knew what he had seen in the bathroom wastebasket, and he knew she had seen it, too. "When's the last time you processed the house of a missing person and didn't collect a spent condom?"

Greg stared at him with his mouth open and Sara nudged him pointedly in the ribs.

"We're not going to do things differently because it's Nick," Grissom said, looking at each of them in turn and then returning his gaze to Catherine. "I mean it, Catherine."

Catherine picked up her kit without acknowledgment and headed back to the hallway. She'd collect what Grissom had asked her to, and she'd even open up drawers and poke around inside of them, the way she had done countless times before in other homes. But she'd be damned if she was going to throw back the bedding and ALS the sheets. And she expected Grissom knew that.

Grissom left each of them to the assigned duties he had given them, Brass and the two officers standing guard. He was done here, suddenly felt uncomfortable here, and walked back to his Denali, wanting the lab and the familiar surroundings of his office. An overwhelming feeling of dread swept over him. He knew the chances of finding a hostage alive diminished with each hour that ticked by after the abduction. There was no reason to believe that whatever the killer had in mind for his three captives hadn't already come to pass. There was no reason to believe that anything they had found at the house, or outside of it, or from a neighbor, was going to make any difference. There was no reason at all. No reason, except that if he gave up hope he'd have nothing to offer the rest of his team.


	21. Chapter 21

Carrie scuttled across the tiles prone on her belly, using her elbows and palms to propel herself forward. It was faster going than it had been the first time, now that she had learned what motions would provide the greatest results. She had previously punched out a tile of the small room adjoining their larger one, but she moved past it. The ceiling was twelve feet above the floor, and she couldn't afford to injure herself on the drop down. She figured that even if she clung to the sides of the frame and dropped down straight, the impact onto the cement floor was more than she was willing to risk. She decided her best bet would be to lower herself onto the top of one of the shelves that lined the walls of the room, and then use the bottom shelving as sort of a ladder to climb down.

The light was becoming dimmer. The more she moved away from the tiles that Warrick had removed in the other room, the more the light source faded. Just as she was beginning to think she was going to lose the illumination altogether, she felt, more than saw, the end of the room. Unlike the room she had just left, this one had a solid barrier at its far end.

Carrie scooted backwards until she was one tile away from the end. She leaned forward and pried the last tile from its metallic frame. She peered down into the gap she had created and saw the shelving directly below her. It was wood, or more likely particleboard, about three-quarters of an inch thick. It had been painted white, but had long since lost its luster, and now looked faded and dingy beneath its coat of dust. The five tiers were attached to the cinderblock wall with metallic brackets and it looked sturdy and unyielding.

It wasn't. Moisture and mold had eaten away at the composite materials and the top shelf buckled under Carrie's weight as soon as she lowered herself down onto it. Her legs broke through the shelf and she lost her balance and crashed, hard, onto the cement floor below.

In their room on the other side, Nick and Warrick heard both the thud of her body and her startled yelp. Nick reacted instinctively to her cry. He tried to rise from the cot, but the instant he put his injured leg in motion, the pain was insurmountable and debilitating. He tried to muffle his own outcry and settled for some choice obscenities. He looked to Warrick.

"Stay," Warrick told him, watching him in concern. "I'll check on her."

Warrick rushed to the wall near the door and shouted through it. "Carrie? What happened? You okay?"

The response was slow in coming, and both Nick and Warrick looked at each other with held breath. Finally Carrie's voice came to them, reassuring and strong.

"It's okay. The shelving broke when I came down on it. Knocked the wind out of me for a minute, but I'm fine. No harm done."

_What a smooth liar you are, Caroline,_ she thought to herself as she lay on the floor, her knee on fire and already beginning to swell. She knew what she had done to it. She'd done it twice before, in fact. The first time she had been a junior in high school and had decided she had some talent for gymnastics and was trying out for the school team. She placed her hands wrong on the takeoff of her vault, came down hard with her right leg twisted beneath her. It was the knee that took the brunt of it. She'd sprained it and torn both the cartilage and a ligament, and it took three months of wearing a brace before it healed enough for her to walk without pain.

The second time was the same injury, pretty much, to the same knee, about seven years later. She was riding an unfamiliar horse that became skittish and she knew she was about to come off of it. Not a problem, usually, but somehow her boot got caught in the stirrup and her knee twisted as she came down. And ever since then, that same knee wanted to either lock in place or buckle in on her at the most inopportune times. She didn't let it slow her down much, and she called it her "trick knee" the way she heard athletes who nursed old injuries refer to theirs. She had always considered herself fortunate that she had never blown it out again. Until now. Yep, she knew exactly what she had done. Sprained it, possibly tore one of the tender ligaments around it, if she was lucky tore up the cartilage around the kneecap instead of a ligament. There'd be an MRI to make sure it didn't need to be 'scoped, heavy doses of ibuprofen, a knee brace to keep it stable. She knew the drill. But right now she was lame, and her first order of business was to fight through the pain and try to become mobile enough to make it up those stairs.

Warrick's voice called out to her again. "You'd better get going. Stay alert, Carrie, and get to a main road as quick as you can."

"Don't worry," Carrie sang out cheerily. "I'll be back before you know it. How's Nick?"

Warrick looked at Nick, his face pale and beaded in sweat, drawing ragged breaths to ward off the nausea brought on by the pain his sudden motion had cost him.

"He's fine. Resting easy. We'll see you soon."

Carrie struggled to sit upright and surveyed the room. The light coming through the holes in the ceiling was barely adequate to see by, but she found what she was looking for. She scooted forward on her rump and grasped one of the pieces of the broken shelving. It was about twelve inches long and six inches wide. She looked around her, found another piece roughly the same size, and stretched her arm out for it, barely grasping it with the tips of her extended fingers. She wanted to stand, but she knew she couldn't do it without something to support her as she hoisted herself up. She could scoot on over to another shelving unit, but her faith in that was gone now and she didn't trust it to bear her weight if she were to grasp a shelf and pull herself up. So she scooted backwards to the door, using the pieces of particle board in her hands like oars to propel her across the floor, dragging her injured leg uselessly behind her.

When she reached the door she pushed it open with her back and moved through it out into the small landing at the bottom of the stairs. She had lost most of the light now, but she knew what she was after and where to seek it. Her hands groped on the cold cement floor and she quickly found what she was looking for. Her fingers curled around one of the pieces of cloth that had been used as a blindfold and then tossed to the floor. She soon found its mate, and now she backed up to the door of the larger room and used it to support her back as she bound her leg. She put one of the pieces of board on one side of her ballooning knee, the other on the side opposite. She secured them by tying one of the strips of cloth around the boards above the knee, the other below it. It sure wasn't as fancy as the royal blue knee brace with the Velcro straps that she had worn, but it would serve.

In front of her loomed the shadows of the stairs to her emancipation. It was too dark to see them fully and they seemed to continue up into nothingness, staggered tiers without end. Carrie shook her head at them, remembering her sightless journey down those steps, clutching Warrick's belt, terrified she would fall and bring him down with her. Her journey up would be no less difficult. She would back herself up onto them on her butt a step at a time if she had to, but she really hoped that now that her leg was braced she could get herself on her feet. She raised her arms over her head, and, with a small smile of triumph, felt the metallic bar that was across the door. She wrapped the fingers of both hands tightly around it.

Years of bucking hay bales and, more recently, three-day-a-week stints at the health club near her office, had given her toned arms and impressive upper body strength, at least by her own assessment. It was no effort at all to hoist herself up with the bar and rise off the floor. But she couldn't quite keep her injured limb off the cement, and even the slight pressure she applied to it was enough to send a lightning bolt of pain through her entire body. She bit her lip, hard, to stifle the outcry she knew would alert the others to her plight. She thought of Nick's scream of agony when he tried to hoist himself off the floor with the chair, the wail ceasing only when he passed out cold in Warrick's arms. Her own pain ebbed considerably as soon as she let the leg hover over the floor, and she knew she was facing nothing like what Nick had had to endure. Thinking of him, what he had gone through, made her feel a little guilty about her own muffled cry, and she decided she was being a bit of a whimp about it all and the best thing to do was to just ignore it as best she could.

With a one-legged hop, Carrie turned herself around and faced the door. The light switch was on the right side of it, and she reached for it and flicked it on. As she knew it would be, the steel bar positioned across the door was locked in place with a padlock. She took the knife Warrick had given her out of her pocket and opened it up. With a half-hearted effort, knowing as soon as she began that it would be futile, she inserted the point of the blade into the lock. She fiddled with it a little, but only succeeded in snapping off the sharp point. She sighed and put the knife back in her pocket. Nothing left to do now but get up those stairs.

It was actually easier than she thought it would be, although frustratingly slow. Using the rail to pull herself up a step at a time, Carrie once again congratulated herself for the strength in her arms and hopped almost agilely from one step to the next. It was an effort, though, and by the time she reached the landing at the top she was out of breath. She balanced herself against the wall, calculating her moves once she was outside. She wouldn't have a rail then to help her, and she knew without doubt that there was no way she could put her injured leg on the ground. Maybe she could find a stick or break off a branch to use as a crutch. Or not. She shook her head ruefully, reminding herself that she was, after all, in a desert and the trees were not exactly as plentiful as they were in the piney woods of Georgia. But she'd figure it out. Hell, she'd crawl if she had to. She had the strength. She figured she could propel herself forward with her arms alone if that's what it took. Whatever. She'd get it done. With renewed confidence she faced the door, balancing on one leg, and turned the knob.

The knob rotated easily in her firm grasp and she pushed the heavy metal door. And pushed. And pushed. It didn't budge. Carrie shook her head in denial, refusing to believe what she had just encountered. "This is _not_ happening," she said aloud. "Open, damnit, _open_!"

She wedged her shoulder against the unforgiving gray slab, pushed with everything she had. Nothing gave way except her balance, and she planted both feet on the landing to catch herself. She cried out in pain, lifted her foot off the floor, and then turned to the door once again and pounded her fists against it, giving in to both pain and frustration.

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Goddamn fucking…"

Warrick and Nick heard both her cry and the obscenities that followed. Nick shouted to her. "Carrie! Carrie, what's wrong? Talk to us now."

She turned to the steps, shouted down the stairwell. "He locked the door. The bastard locked the fuckin_g_ _door_!"

In the other room, Nick and Warrick exchanged stunned glances. As it had with Carrie, it took a while for it to register. The killer hadn't locked that door when he left Nick alone. That he had locked it when he left again was the last thing they had expected.

"He locked the _outside_ door?" Nick's voice was incredulous.

Carrie directed her frustration toward Nick, had nowhere else for it to go. "Yeah, Nick. The outside door. Was there another door you were thinking I was trying to go out of?"

There was only silence from the room at the end of the stairs, and Carrie drew a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She could imagine the impact her news had on Nick and Warrick, and when she spoke again, her voice was gentle.

"I'm sorry, baby. I just…I was just so sure. I wanted to get you help. I was so sure I could do it."

"It's okay. It's okay, darlin'. We'll figure somethin' out."

The drawl in Nick's voice was comforting and familiar, and she longed to be with him. If she could have done it, she would have gone back up into the hole in the ceiling and crawled back to him. She should have trusted her gut, should never have left him. She should have…

"Carrie, come back down the stairs so we can talk to you easier," Warrick called out.

Carrie looked down the steps, so many of them, and knew she didn't have the energy to tackle them. Her knee still throbbed with the pain of her misguided step, and she suddenly felt exhausted.

"I will," she told him. "In a while. I think I'll just…just stay up here for a little bit."

Nick's voice reflected his concern. "You all right?"

"Yes," Carrie assured him. "I'll be down soon. How are you doing?"

On the other side of the cinderblocks, Warrick looked at Nick critically when he heard Carrie's query. Nick had still been shaky and pale from his attempt to rise from the cot after Carrie's first outcry when she had fallen to the floor. At her second yelp, he would not be deterred. Warrick had helped him sit upright and had swung his legs over the side of the cot so Nick could sit on the edge of it as he talked to Carrie. He sat there now, his right hand wrapped around his injured shoulder, his left leg trembling.

"Fine and dandy, darlin'," Nick called out, his voice relaxed and confident, and Warrick marveled at the seeming ease of the deception. But as soon as he had said it, Nick hunched over, not trying to keep up the charade for Warrick. He felt suddenly dizzy, and he could feel the nausea rise.

"Fuck. Not this again," Nick groaned. He looked apologetically at Warrick and then bowed his head again as Warrick placed the round can beneath his friend's hanging head and Nick threw up into the white plastic bag that lined the metal container.

"Sorry, bro," Nick said when he could manage to talk again. "You'd think I'd quit doing that at some point."

"Your body's been through a lot, Nick. This is just the way it's…reacting. And don't forget that you had a pretty good knock on the head. Concussions bring on nausea, too."

Nick didn't much care if he was puking because of the head injury, or the waves of pain, or maybe even shock. He just wanted it to stop. His throat was raw and his abdominal muscles sore. "Whatever. Just don't tell Carrie."

Warrick shrugged. "Tell her what? Come on, drink some water, and then let's get you back down."

Nick sighed resignedly and took the proffered water, taking a long swallow. He was just as concerned about dehydration as Warrick was, but he was torn between wanting to keep hydrated and worried about what would happen if he ever had to pee. But so far he hadn't had to deal with it. Probably couldn't keep any fluid in his body long enough for it to reach his bladder. Hell, there was a silver lining in everything, he thought ironically. He smiled to himself and Warrick watched him quizzically, then helped him back onto the cot. Warrick adjusted the pillow behind Nick's head and pulled the blanket up around him, tucking him in as he would a child.

"Gonna sing me a lullaby, too?" Nick asked him.

"Shut up and get some rest," Warrick ordered. He plopped himself down in the chair next to Nick, keeping an ear out for anything that Carrie might say, trying to come up with what they would do now, now that their escape to the outside world was denied to them.


	22. Chapter 22

When Grissom got back to the lab, he sat in his office, staring at the padded mailing envelope that was on his desk. It had been processed while they were at Nick's, but it yielded nothing. There were no viable prints on the envelope or note. The note had been sent to QD, but Grissom wasn't expecting anything to come of it. Hodges had been pressed into service and had called Citixpress courier service, with no good news. Everyone who had been on shift in the afternoon was off now, and they were working on tracking them all down. Nick's ring yielded no prints except a few smudged partials that Mandy determined were a match to Nick alone. Both the envelope and ring should have been in the evidence room, but Grissom had taken both to his office. He held the ring now between two fingers, staring at it pensively before shaking his head and placing it carefully in his desk drawer.

Catherine returned with the few items she had collected, followed a few hours later by a weary Sara and Greg, who had, frustratingly, gotten nothing probative from the neighbors, most of whom they had roused from their beds. The fact that it was a Sunday was working against them. Instead of arriving home from work in the afternoon, most neighbors had been in their houses, watching football or eating Sunday dinner. No one seemed to have been out on the street to witness anything.

They came back with scant evidence to process, but what they had took almost five hours and had yielded very little that was useful. The contents of the grocery bag told the story of a dinner planned but never prepared. It had held salad fixings, a loaf of Italian bread, red wine, pasta and spaghetti sauce, and a carton of Dryers vanilla bean ice cream, its liquid contents mostly seeped out through the bottom of the bag and onto Nick's stoop. They were unable to lift prints from the bag, but they had found several sets of prints on the various food packages, as would be expected. Grissom was most interested in what wasn't there. None of the prints were Nick's and none were Warrick's, indicating that Dr. Brighton, whose prints were matched to several items, had shopped alone.

The prints they had lifted off the doorknobs from the outside and inside front door were mostly Nick's, although Mandy did find some overlaying partials that matched those of Caroline Brighton, suggesting she had been the last to touch both knobs. She had probably been the last to touch the security pad as well. There was no DNA on file for Dr. Brighton, so Grissom had Wendy in the DNA lab extract exemplars from the toothbrush and hairbrush that Catherine had collected from Nick's bathroom. He hoped he would have no reason to make a comparison later, but he had been at this job long enough to know that things didn't always turn out the way they should, and it was better to be ready for any eventuality.

Catherine had retrieved two used condoms from Nick's bathroom, and Grissom had pressed for their collection for no other reason than to try to establish a timeline of Nick's disappearance. But he had them tested for DNA anyway, just to be thorough, and Catherine had bristled when he had ordered it. He knew she felt this was an unacceptable invasion of Nick's privacy, but he wasn't deterred. If they were processing any other home of a missing person and had found a condom, they would have run the tests. He was determined not to treat this any differently. Processing the evidence from Nick's home the same way he would process it for any case kept him focused, kept his mind from running through all the "what ifs" that he knew were tormenting his other CSIs.

Wendy called him when her results were in. The fluid in the reservoirs of both condoms was a match to Nick, and the vaginal contributions on the exteriors a match to the DNA Wendy had collected from the toothbrush and hairbrush. He had expected nothing else, but he hurried to the lab anyway. Catherine was there, looking at a slide under a microscope. A second microscope also held a slide. Grissom leaned over her shoulder.

"Anything?"

Catherine shook her head. "Nothing definitive. Definitely two timeframes. The tails are completely eaten away from one sample, but still partially intact from the other."

"Suggesting one encounter last night and another this morning?"

"Probably."

"Well, at least it places Nick at his house this morning. We know the package meant for Dr. Brighton was delivered at 4:30. So sometime between daylight and say, four, he was taken. Gives us a timeframe, even if it is a big one, when we go back to interview more of the neighbors." He looked at his watch. "Which should be soon. It's after six already."

He bent to peer into the second microscope, but Catherine quickly pushed it away. He looked at her questioningly.

"We've gotten all we're going to get here," Catherine said with finality. "What about the vehicles?"

They hadn't started on any of the three vehicles that had been towed back to the lab, and Grissom knew they would find nothing when they did. Still, he would order it done now that they were finished with the rest. Procedure was all he had now.

"I'll go get Greg started on them."

Grissom left, and Catherine breathed a sigh of relief. Just as she had done at Nick's home, she had a strong sense that this was something she needed to shield from Grissom's eyes. The slides under the microscope were just smears like those they had looked at countless of times. Yet, somehow she understood that Nick would be upset if he knew Grissom was examining them, just as she understood he would not react well if he knew Grissom was rummaging around his bedroom and bathroom. She also knew, with just as much certainty, that Grissom would be baffled by Nick's reaction. To Grissom, it was just evidence collection, and Nick's emotions were very far removed from the process.

Catherine was still ticked at Grissom for the collection in the first place, for not veering from his precious protocol when it came to "evidence." This was evidence of nothing other than Nick was enjoying an active sex life recently. The matching of the DNA, the examination of the sperm, all of it was just procedure, just Grissom's need to have the evidence confirm what the rest of them already knew. Logic told them that if Nick had been taken during the night instead of in the day, Carrie would have notified them. Everything pointed to the fact that they had both been at the house in the morning and Carrie had left for the day without Nick. It was clear that she had not intended to see him again until she arrived much later that day with the groceries; she would have called them if she had been concerned. But Grissom didn't need logical thought; he needed concrete evidence.

_Whatever gets him through_, Catherine thought, deciding to be more charitable. If she needed to think about what Nick would want, and Grissom needed assurance from the evidence, then so be it. They were all dealing with this in their own ways. She took the slide out and put it back in its envelope and was preparing to do the same with the other when Sara rushed into the room.

"Brass just called," Sara said, her voice rising. "We're rolling. We've got another body dump."

Catherine literally dropped what she was doing, knowing that Wendy would take care of it, and hurried to get her kit. She joined Sara and Greg in one of the Denalis, giving in to Greg's demands that he be the driver. None of them concerned themselves with Grissom, knowing that somehow he would manage to get there before them, probably had already left.

The dumpsite this time was out in Henderson, in an established, upper-end neighborhood. Greg jolted, rather than rolled, the vehicle to a stop on the street behind a patrol car. The three CSIs got out and surveyed the scene from behind the tape. As with the Ruth Murphy site, only Grissom, who had indeed arrived before them, had crossed the tape. The coroner wasn't even there yet. The plastic-wrapped body was on the cobbled walkway that led to the double oak doors of the two-story Tudor home. It had been discovered by the paperboy, a gangly sixteen-year-old who was earning money toward a used junker and who had seen it as he buzzed by on his bike, about to hike the rolled-up paper. He had, according to Brass, called his mom on his cell—hell, did every kid have one now days—too shaken to think to call 911, and the mom had called it in. Mom and son were now standing on the lawn of the neighbor's house, talking to Sofia.

Another couple was there, too, a man and woman in their mid-fifties or early sixties, clad in robes, looking bewildered, denied access to their own property. Brass pointed them out as the homeowners, who had reportedly heard nothing unusual that morning, heard nothing, in fact, until they were in the kitchen pouring their first cups of coffee and heard the wail of sirens, the doorbell chiming. They all looked at the couple sympathetically. They knew the site wasn't chosen at random; they never were. Brass sighed heavily and then turned to the CSI he deemed to be best suited for what he had to do next.

"Come with me," Brass directed Catherine.

They approached the couple and Brass made introductions. "Mr. and Mrs. Harrington, this is Catherine Willows, from the crime lab. She's going to ask you a few more questions."

The woman, Mrs. Harrington, grasped Catherine's hand, visibly shaken. "I don't know what else we can tell you," she said. "We didn't see or hear anything. This is such a quiet neighborhood. Nothing like this has ever happened here. It's so…so...terrible."

"I know," Catherine agreed. "It is. Was there anyone else at home, anyone who might have heard anything? Do you have children?"

"Three, but not at home. The youngest moved out a few months ago to go to school. We're the only ones here now."

"Do you have any daughters?" Brass asked bluntly, and Catherine scowled at him. She assumed he needed her assistance to lend the tact he sometimes--well, most of the time--lacked. But he wasn't giving her much of a chance.

Mr. Harrington fielded that one. "Yeah. All girls." He looked nervously at the wrapped bundle on his walkway. "You want to tell me what this is about?"

Brass plowed ahead, oblivious to the father's growing concern. "They live in the area, do they, your girls?"

Now the mother, as well, was looking back over to her own lawn, to Grissom taking pictures inside the taped-off area. "The oldest is in San Diego. The other two are in Vegas. Christine, the one who just started school, lives in a dorm on campus. Allison, she's our middle girl, is a tax attorney. Just moved into a new condo in June."

Catherine could hear the pride in her voice, and she wanted nothing more than to walk away from this. But she did her job. "When's the last time you saw your girls?"

Mrs. Harrington looked up at Catherine. Her eyes were blue, and they teared up as she answered. "Allison…let's see…we saw Allison on Thursday last week. She came by after work and had dinner with us. And Christine. Well, she likes to have her space; it's her first time away from home, you know, and I try not to crowd her too much. It's been, I don't know, about ten days or so since I talked to her on the phone."

Catherine reached inside her vest for her cell phone and handed it to the woman, letting her hand brush against hers, resting it there reassuringly for a moment. "Why don't you call her? You know the number?"

The woman nodded, her hands now shaking as she punched the numbers. She started to put the phone to her ear but then handed it off to her husband. "You do it," she told him softly.

He took it wordlessly, and they could all hear the relief in his voice as he spoke into it. "Chrissy? No, everything's all right. I know it's early. Sorry about that. Your mom and I were just…just thinking about you. Everything going okay?"

There was a pause as the father listened to his daughter, and Catherine could hear the smile in his voice when he answered her. "Well, you have plenty of time for that. But bring him home for dinner if you want; I'll look him over. Yeah, yeah, I know."

But then his tone changed, and Catherine looked away from him as he spoke again. "You didn't see Allie this weekend, did you? No, no. It's fine, honey. I'll say good-bye now. You call your mom more often, huh? Let her know how you are. She misses you. Okay, I'll tell her. We love you."

He handed the phone back to Catherine, looked once more at the activity on his lawn, and put his arm around his wife.

Brass cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You, uh, want to call the other one?"

The man shook his head, and his wife clutched his arm and buried her head in his shoulder. The coroner's van had pulled up, along with a few more cars. Mr. Harrington watched the coroner duck under the tape. "Call me over there when you need me," he said gruffly, and then he walked away from them, guiding his wife to the comfort of their neighbors, a couple their age who were standing on their porch silently watching the commotion next door.

There were so many patrol cars now that they lined both sides of the street. Some of the uniforms were knocking on doors; some were out on foot patrolling the area. There were two helicopters overhead. It looked as if the entire neighborhood population was out of their houses, standing on their manicured lawns, some still in bathrobes, clutching cups of steaming coffee for warmth in the crisp autumn morning. A news van maneuvered its way onto the street and Brass swore under his breath.

"Goddamn circus." He nodded to the two uniformed men standing nearest to him. "Get 'em out of here. Cite 'em for blocking the street if you have to."

Brass returned to the edge of the tape, Catherine, Greg, and Sara following. Conrad Ecklie and Undersheriff McKeen, who had both followed the coroner's van, were standing there as well, watching Grissom take photos. David Phillips was on the scene now, kneeling next to the body. Brass held up the tape and crossed under it, crouching next to the assistant coroner.

"The parents pretty much know the score," he told David. "Maybe when you open the plastic, you could do it just enough for an ID. Try not to…to expose the neck or the rest of the body. That okay with you, Gil?"

Grissom nodded distractedly. He had known as soon as he saw the body that it wasn't the same as the others. There was way too much plastic, for one thing. So much of the sheeting had been wrapped around the corpse that it was impossible to see through it, but both times before they could see the color of the skin, the smears of red on the chest, through the plastic. And while the other bodies had been wrapped tidily, this one seemed attended to with less attention to detail, the plastic more loosely wound and with visible crinkles.

"Everything we do to this happens in the morgue and the lab," Grissom told David.

David answered him uncertainly. "You don't even want to try for the ID?"

Grissom looked next door, watched the homeowners huddled on their neighbors' porch. "Okay. But be careful. Just slit the plastic enough to expose the face. Nothing more."

David reached into his bag and got out a blade. He began to carefully slice through the layers of plastic that were covering the victim's face. The sheeting was so thick it took him three tries at it before he had it open and could cleave it apart. The three of them peered down expectantly at the exposed features. The victim was a brunette, her pale skin flawless, marred only by the raccoon mask around the open green eyes. Her lips were tinged with blue beneath their sheen of soft pink lipstick.

Brass sighed heavily and straightened up. "I'll go get the dad." He crossed the tape, but Catherine stopped him.

"I'll do it," Catherine said, even as she said it hating this job, this moment. She had come to terms with the more unsavory aspects of her career long ago, but the one thing she could never quite face without mustering up her courage first was the grief of a parent. Every time she witnessed their pain, heard their denials, their pleas, their sobs, she thought her heart would break. And it was no different now. She led Mr. Harrington to the other side of the yellow tape and he followed her like a somnambulist, kneeling jerkily next to David as the coroner held apart the plastic that covered the girl's face.

"Oh, God." He swayed a bit and Catherine knelt next to him and put her hand on his back. He reached out to touch the face, but Catherine quickly caught his hand and held it.

"Mr. Harrington, I'm sorry. But we need you to say it. Is this your daughter? Is this Allison?"

The father muffled a sob and Catherine could feel his shoulders shake beneath her touch. "Yes," he said finally. "It's Allie."

Catherine nodded to Brass, and the two of them helped Mr. Harrington to his feet. Catherine walked him back to his neighbors, who had already taken his wife inside their home. She deposited him in their care, feeling guilty that she was trying to hurry away before she could hear any sounds come out of that house. But she wasn't quick enough. The mother's wail of anguish followed her back to the yard next door.

Grissom was already packing up, ready to leave. Catherine looked at him questioningly. "You want some of us to stay and process the site?"

Grissom shook his head firmly. "No. Ecklie called in his guys. They'll do it." He looked at what was left of his team, saw the weariness on their faces, their struggle to conceal the emotions he knew were uncomfortably close to the surface after they had watched the father. He looked at the body as David readied to remove it from the site, taking a final glance at the plastic sheeting.

"I want all of you in the morgue," Grissom announced. And then, uncharacteristically, he smiled encouragingly at them. "I think our guy finally got careless. Let's go find some evidence."


	23. Chapter 23

"You ready for us to move the cat now?" Al Robbins was looking at the plump orange cat that had been placed atop the victim's crotch, its swollen tongue lolling, the white cord knotted around its neck so hard it was embedded in the fur. He had a cat at home, a docile Siamese—at least as docile as Siamese cats get—and had gotten several litters of kittens from her. He considered her part of his family and thought of how he would react if someone had done this to her. But then he shook his head in reproach. On his table lay a twenty-seven-year-old woman who had been brutally murdered and butchered. Why the hell did his thoughts go to the cat?

Grissom took one last picture of the feline. "Yes. And then move the body to another table, off this plastic. I want to get this back to the lab."

The plastic sheeting had been sliced down the length of the body and it fell away, the weight of the many layers causing it to drape over the sides of the steel table. After Doc Robbins and David had lifted the body off of it, Catherine and Sara scrutinized the top surface and then carefully gathered it up with gloved hands, ready to deposit it into the large brown-paper evidence bag that Greg held open for them.

"Whoa. Hold up." Greg jerked his chin to the floor. "You dropped something."

The women quickly placed their bundle into the bag and then directed their attention to the floor. They stared incredulously, as did the others. The length of gray duct tape that had fallen out of the layers of sheeting was long, at least thirty-six inches, and it was hard to believe that the killer had somehow grabbed it up unnoticed and inadvertently wrapped it in the sheeting. Grissom picked it up with a pair of forceps and held it aloft, letting it dangle. Part of it was smeared with blood, still wet and glistening in the harsh overhead lights of the morgue, no chance for the blood to cake with the plastic against it.

"Are there wounds on her wrists?" Grissom asked Doc Robbins.

The examiner peered more closely at the body. "No. Just adhesive residue."

Grissom looked keenly at the strip of tape. There were visible fingerprints in the sheen of blood. His heart raced and he felt the rush, that rush of adrenaline that came when he knew he had something, something that might cause the case to break. He placed the tape into an evidence bag and handed it to Greg.

"Take this with you, too. Get a print lift, then get it to DNA, top priority. Tell them to analyze the epithelials on the adhesive, not just the blood. And fume that plastic as soon as…"

"What the hell?" Doc's voice sounded both puzzled and urgent. "You'd better get over here and take a look at this, Gil."

Doc Robbins's hand grasped the vic's wrist and was holding it up in the air, exposing the underside of her left arm, which had been nestled against her side. Both he and David were staring at the arm, mouths gaping in unconcealed astonishment. Grissom and his team stared as well.

"Holy shit." Greg quickly put his packages on an empty table and looked again at the arm, not quite believing what he was seeing. There was blood on it, the blood forming letters, forming a word. _Ns window_.

Sara muttered an interpretation. "En ess window." She turned to Grissom. "N's window. Nick's window? Is that what it means?"

Grissom was already headed for the door. "We'll find out. I'm going over to Nick's. One of you stay here and finish processing the body; take more photos than you think you'll need." He motioned to the two brown sacks. "Get these processed. Make short work of it. Tell Wendy to use exemplars."

"Exemplars?" Greg knew Grissom was miles ahead of him, and he felt sort of stupid that he couldn't keep up. "But we don't know…"

Catherine got it. She looked at Greg, and he thought her expression was one of both pity and annoyance, but he hoped he was misreading it.

"Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, Caroline Brighton," Catherine spelled out, and Greg tried not to look too taken aback. "We'll get on it, Gil," Catherine assured him.

"Call me with the results and then meet me at Nick's," Grissom said, talking over his shoulder as he hurried out the door.

Sara stayed in the morgue and Catherine and Greg rushed the evidence bags to the lab. They handed the tape off and dealt with the plastic themselves. When they fumed it, it had, unlike the sheeting from the previous cases, yielded prints. Lots of them. Catherine smiled as the prints appeared under the wispy tendrils, and then the smile widened as more and more of the spirals and swirls revealed themselves.

"Okay, okay. We get it."

"We do?" Greg asked, looking at the myriad of prints, and once again hating that he was trailing behind one of his teammates.

Catherine nodded. "Oh, yeah. There's no way the killer got this careless and he sure as hell didn't plant the duct tape or write on the arm. We are looking, my friend, at the work of a CSI. Let's figure out which one."

They lifted prints from various parts of the sheeting, wanting to confirm that they were all from the same source, but visually it sure appeared that way. Mandy was ready for them in the print lab, quickly scanning one of the cards Greg had handed her. Even though they had known it would be there, both Catherine and Greg drew in sharp breaths when the word "compliance" quickly flashed on the screen.

"In-house," Mandy confirmed. "Hold on."

It didn't take long for "match found" to pulse on the terminal and the words "Warrick Brown" to appear. Greg watched the screen for a while, his mind sorting out scenarios. Okay, so Warrick was the one who wrapped the body. How does that happen, that a CSI wraps plastic around a dead girl? Did he do it at gunpoint? Did he do it voluntarily, knowing he could plant clues? What Greg knew for sure, though, was that at least Warrick was alive at that point, and that he was being held in the same place as the girl had been.

A tech walked over from the other side of the lab, holding a print card that held the image he had lifted from the bloodied tape before it went to the DNA lab. Greg didn't even know his name, although he was pretty sure he worked swing, either coming in way before his shift was supposed to start, or still on the clock from the day before. Whoever he was, he looked exhausted, and Greg decided that he had never clocked out. Ever since the body of Ruth Murphy had been found, it had been all hands on deck, everyone working to process the evidence from the dumpsites and homes of the first two victims. And then when Nick, Warrick, and Dr. Brighton had been discovered missing, things moved at an almost frenetic pace, one shift overlapping the next, no one much paying attention to clocks, no one willing to call it a day until ordered to do so by a supervisor. Day shift seemed to be taking the brunt of it, and even now Ecklie and his guys were out in the field, some at the dumpsite, some at the condo of Allison Harrington.

Mandy took the card. The other tech hung around, reluctant to leave without knowing the results. News of what had been found in the morgue had spread quickly through the lab, and everyone in the building was on edge, not sure whether to be hopeful or apprehensive. Mandy scanned the card and waited. There was no compliance this time, and "searching prints" flashed on and off the screen as the program searched its databanks for identification. She let it run for a while, hoping to get a fast hit, but she quickly grew impatient and tried a different tactic.

"Let's see if we can speed this along," Mandy said. Either the prints belonged to the perp and it was going to take AFIS a while to find a match, provided he was even in the database, or…

Mandy's skillful fingers flitted across the keyboard as she called up the data she had stored from the previous night. She had scanned Dr. Brighton's prints from the information card Grissom had provided, and the data had been used to match the psychologist to several items in the grocery bag and to the doorknob of Nick's home. She was hoping for a match again. Otherwise, they were in for a frustrating wait with the very real possibility of no payoff.

They didn't have to wait. "Match found" appeared almost as soon as Mandy punched a button. "Caroline Brighton," Mandy read aloud.

Greg frowned. This scenario was more uncomfortable to visualize. The tape had been bloodied, and it didn't take Grissom or Catherine to explain to him the implications of that.

Catherine must have shared his thoughts. Her voice was subdued when she spoke. "Let's go see what Wendy found."

Greg entered the DNA lab with a feeling of dread. Wendy was looking at a slide under the microscope, and she barely looked up when the CSIs entered the room.

"Epithelials are present. The blood analysis is on screen."

"Wow," Greg said. "Good work." Wendy had run the analysis as quickly as he could have done it himself when this was his domain, and he thought about how fast everything was happening since they had found Allison Harrington. That so many people were working with frenzied purposefulness to crack this thing wide open, scattered in the field or in the lab, gave him a satisfying sense of camaraderie, a sense of belonging. And an exhilarating rush of energy, almost a high.

"Which exemplar do you want me to use?" Wendy asked. She had three queued up, two on file and one provided from items collected from Nick's home, Grissom's foresight now coming into play.

"Let's start with Dr. Brighton," Catherine said. "It was her prints on the tape."

Wendy called up the information and split the screen, the exemplar on the left, the DNA from the blood on the right. They were not a match.

"Next up?" Wendy asked.

Catherine didn't need the analysis now to know what the results would be, but she replied anyway. "Nick Stokes."

Again the data was called up on the split screen. Wendy looked at it and then united the two images together, overlaying one on top of the other. It was a perfect merge.

They were quiet for a moment, but finally Catherine spoke. "Can you tell us anything about the blood?"

"It isn't arterial," Wendy said. "I don't have anything beyond that. I sent a sample to tox. Henry's working on it."

"Okay," Catherine said quietly. "Call me when you get the results from the epithelials. Compare it to the Stokes exemplar first."

"We stopping by tox?" Greg asked as they left the DNA lab.

Catherine shook her head. "Nope. Let's get Sara and head over to Nick's." The DNA results had given her a renewed sense of urgency. Whatever Warrick wanted them to find was at Nick's, and the sooner they found it, the better.

Wendy called Catherine en route and told her the epithelials on the tape were a match to Nick as well. Catherine relayed the information to Grissom, but if he had a reaction to it, he kept it from her. Catherine's own reaction was mixed. Warrick had given them enough information to place all three at the same location, which was somehow comforting, but he had also provided enough information to let them know that Nick had been bound and injured. And there was nothing comforting about that.

Nick's small home was a beehive of activity. Uniformed police swarmed around the house, and the unfamiliar sight of them gloved up and dusting for prints on the panes of Nick's windows gave the three CSIs pause as Greg struggled to find a place to park amid the patrol cars.

Sara arched a brow. "Now that's not something we see every day," she told Grissom as he met them at the front door.

Grissom shrugged. "We're short on options, and right now it's all about manpower," he explained. The undersherrif had given him a directive to use whatever means necessary to "nail that bastard and get our guys back home," and with every CSI and detective already out in the field, this seemed like the best solution. Grissom had come to the point where he might have—_might_ have—even welcomed an FBI agent or two, but so far none had shown up. It had been his experience with the agency that they were quick to arrive and step on toes when there was no need, and then when a case came along that he was sure would require their involvement, they were scarce.

Grissom's first theory when he saw the cryptic message Warrick had written was that there had been an entry attempt into the home through a window and they had somehow missed that when they did the walk-through of the interior and when they checked the perimeter. But closer examination revealed nothing amiss, and without a trained team on site, Grissom couldn't do much more than supervise the dusting for prints. There were some, of course. More on the inside glass and sills than on the outside, and they would all be lifted and taken to the lab for analysis. Now that his CSIs were here they could begin to look deeper.

"I'm glad you're here," he told his team. "We need to ALS not only the windows, but the sills, the frames, the walls around them, the floor or ground beneath them, the outside ledges. Catherine, you and I can take the inside; Sara and Greg, you're outside."

Greg frowned slightly as he opened his kit. It was midmorning now, and the sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky. It was a hell of a lot easier to ALS in the dark, but unlike Grissom and Catherine, he didn't have that option. On the other hand, the cops inside were attacking their assignment with novice zeal and he suspected it was getting kind of hard to breathe in the powder-filled air. Maybe he got the better end of the deal after all. He and Sara split up their duties. He'd start in the back and then take the kitchen side of the house; she'd start in the front and then tackle the two bedroom windows on the opposite side.

It was slow going. Greg hovered the bluish light not only on the glass panes, but also, as Grissom had instructed, on the window ledges and frames, on the planked siding, even on the bushes and ground under the windows. He had a moment of false excitement and hope when a small splash of red liquid was revealed on the ledge of the kitchen window. But upon further examination the "evidence" proved to be a stray droplet that had escaped the hummingbird feeder that Nick had hung from the eaves over the window. Greg sighed in disappointment. "What are we looking for here, Warrick?" he muttered aloud.

On the other side of the house, Sara was wondering the same thing. She had examined the front windows and the first of the bedroom windows and had found nothing. Now she was scrutinizing the glass on the master bedroom window, and, as she had expected by now, found nothing there, either. She shook her head, suddenly feeling that this entire visit to Nick's house was an exercise in futility, and she was beginning to wonder if they had misinterpreted Warrick's message. Maybe it wasn't about Nick's windows. Maybe…

The fluorescent-white smear that came into view as soon as she held the light over the window's ledge was unmistakable. She had seen it countless times before. Her heart beat absurdly fast and her voice rose in excitement. "I found it!" she shouted. "I _found _it!"

Greg was closest and he rushed to her, stopping cold when he saw the illuminated semen. "The guy was beating off outside Nick's _window_?" he asked in astonishment. He was as astounded by the finding as he was by the fact that Warrick had known it would be there. He hoped—no, wished hard—that he would have the chance to ask Warrick himself about it.

Sara said nothing, and she trained the light on the leaves of the bushes under the window. More of the sperm clusters were revealed, and this time the policeman who had printed the window gave a low whistle.

"Jeez, the guy squirted all over the place," he said. Sara scowled at his lack of professionalism, but Greg was just glad it wasn't him on the receiving end of Sara's displeasure. Frankly, he had been thinking the same thing, and he congratulated himself that he had the sense this time not to say what he thought aloud. He looked again at the evidence. It wasn't really "all over the place," but it was obvious there had been multiple occurrences. How many times had that pervert been outside this window? Probably as many times as Nick and Dr. Brighton had been on the other side of it, he realized. He thought of the killer stalking Dr. Brighton, following her here, huddling in the protective cover of the shrubbery while…

Catherine and Grissom arrived, looking at the evidence that both Greg and Sara illuminated for them. They said nothing beyond Catherine's relieved, "Well done, Warrick," and went immediately to work. They swabbed the ledge; they snapped off leaves and dropped them into bindles.

Grissom smirked in satisfaction. They finally, _finally_, had a piece of this bastard. He turned to his team. "Okay. Let's ID this son of a bitch."


	24. Chapter 24

Grissom looked at the clock that was suspended on the wall of the small room adjacent to the DNA lab. Catherine came in with two cups of coffee, and her eyes followed his.

"You can't slow it down by staring at it," Catherine said as she handed Grissom a Styrofoam cup.

Grissom sighed heavily and took the offered cup. His gaze returned to the computer terminal in front of him. He wished he _could_ make the time stand still, or at least, as Catherine said, slow it down. But hours had gone by since the DNA analysis from the semen had been entered into CODIS, precious hours that they could have spent trying to locate the suspect, if only they could get a hit on the ID. There were no viable prints taken from the exterior of Nick's bedroom window or the area adjacent, so CODIS was all they had. There was no hit from the forensic index and the offender index, which is what Grissom had pinned his hopes to, was still running. There were over four and a half million profiles in that index, and he well knew that it could run for hours yet before hitting—if it hit.

"Any word on the Georgia and Colorado searches?" he asked Catherine. They both knew that the national databank was not a perfect system. States were still free to pick and choose what data they entered in or held back beyond sexual offenses and felonies. Each state had thousands of DNA records on file that never made it into CODIS.

"Brass said he'd call. Nothing yet, I guess." Catherine put a hand on Grissom's hunched back. He was no longer trying to conceal his weariness, and she found it disconcerting. "It's a waiting game now, Gil. You know that."

Grissom did know it, and he was damn tired of playing it. He rose from his chair, taking the coffee with him. "I'm going over to the station," he announced. He looked once more--morosely, Catherine thought--at the computer. "Call me if this hits on anything."

Grissom knew Brass wasn't going to be too fond of him badgering him in his office, but at this point he really didn't care. There'd been enough times Brass had badgered him in his. He had a hunch Brass had gotten callbacks from both states, with no good news, and that he just hadn't passed the word to the lab yet. The communication between the two sectors was not always as efficient as it should have been.

As soon as he approached the detective's office, it became clear that Brass had been indeed holding back information. Or, more likely, hadn't had an opportunity to relay it yet. The office was a flurry of activity. Uniformed policemen hovered outside the door, talking in hushed voices that every now and then rose in excitement. Inside, Brass was on the phone, at the same time pulling documents out of the fax machine. Sofia was at the computer and hovering over her was an officer Grissom rarely worked with and whose name escaped him.

Grissom elbowed his way through the cluster of uniforms and entered the office. Sofia looked up when he came in.

"We get it?" Grissom asked her.

"We got it," Sofia said, and Grissom could hear the triumph in her voice. She nodded to Brass. "Denver PD. He's been talking to them for a while. You want to get your team over here?"

Grissom didn't need any prompting to get on his cell and call Catherine, telling her to round up Greg and Sara and get to Brass's office. He had so many questions, but he would hold them until the others came, knew Sofia wanted them here so she and Brass wouldn't have to repeat information. In the meantime, he just listened and watched. Brass pulled out a piece of paper that had just been faxed.

"Yeah," Brass said into the phone. "That one just came over." He looked at the paper in his hand. "Margaret Jacobsen? Isn't that the name of one of the victims?"

Grissom arched a brow when he heard the name, wanting nothing more than to grab the sheet of paper from Brass's hand and look at it. He hoped Catherine and the others arrived soon.

Brass finished his call. "Okay. No, no. This is plenty. We can take it from here. I really appreciate how fast you got this together, Captain. Yeah. I'll call you as soon as we know anything."

He hung up, grabbed the stack of papers next to the fax machine, and handed them to the officer near Sofia. "Make ten copies of each of these," he instructed.

Grissom frowned as he watched the information he so desperately wanted walk out the door. His patience finally gave way and he faced Brass. "Well?"

Brass ignored him and crossed over to Sofia, looking at the information on her screen. "Anything?" he asked her.

"Maybe. I found the name in the white pages, four entries. None of the first names match, though. I'm still checking Nevada DMV."

"_Jim_." The impatience in Grissom's voice demanded attention.

"Sorry, Gil. It's been sort of nuts since we got the call from Denver. Okay. The ID is for a Richard Turnbull, last known address Denver, Colorado."

"Why is he in the system there?" Grissom asked, abandoning his plan to save his questions until his team arrived. But before Brass could answer, Catherine, Sara, and Greg came into the office, followed by the officer with the Xeroxed documents. Brass took the papers and rifled through them, found the two he wanted, and handed out copies, acknowledging the arrival of each CSI as he did so.

The three CSIs looked at the papers. The relief of finally having a name to attach to the killer was evident on all their faces. Brass had given them driver's license information, with a copy of the license photo, from the Colorado DMV. The license was last renewed April 2003. They also had a copy of a police report from the Denver PD with a mug shot. The report was more recent, just four months ago.

Greg scanned the police report in his hand. "Look at that. Mr. Richard Turnbull is a member of the Pee Wee Herman Club."

Brass looked at him quizzically. "Pee Wee what?"

"Herman. Well, that was his name on TV, anyway. He got caught doing a little…uh…public spanking of the monkey. Made the news. Looks like that's what our guy was booked for."

Sara, too, looked at the paper Brass had just handed to her. "Yeah," she said, "but that's a minor offense. Wonder why they took DNA? Colorado's not a state that takes DNA from all arrestees."

"Let's just be glad they did," Catherine said.

Brass handed them all another sheet of paper. "Probably because it was his second offense of that…nature. This is the one you wanna look at."

The first police report was for the same offense, plus trespass. "Apparently his neighbor pressed the charges. She found him outside her house and called the police. That was in 1999. He had no priors and he didn't serve any time. But part of the sentencing conditions was that he see a therapist."

The pieces had clicked into place for Grissom. "And that therapist was Margaret Jacobsen," he said.

Sara asked the same question Brass had earlier. "Isn't that the name of one of the Denver victims?"

"Yeah," Brass confirmed. "Same one."

Sara was looking at the photos on the reports and on the driver's license. She didn't feel like she was looking at the face of a serial killer, but she had learned long ago that there was no "face" to perpetrators of violent crimes. They came from all walks of life, from all backgrounds. And usually they looked, as did the man in these photos, very ordinary.

"Caucasian," she read aloud. "Date of birth April 25, 1969. So he's what…37? Brown hair, blue eyes. Sixty-seven and a half inches, 135 pounds."

"Scrawny guy," Greg commented.

"It doesn't take brawn to kill," Grissom pointed out. "Jim, what…"

Sofia interrupted his question. "Okay," she said. "I've got some Turnbulls, but no Richard. There's John, Steven, Craig, and P. Turnbull in the white pages. All of them have Nevada licenses. The P. is Patricia. No Richard in the DMV, but I'll print out the ones we've got."

Brass poised his hand over the printer and took out the pages. He looked at each of them and then handed them to Grissom. "What do you think?"

Grissom, too, looked at the license copies. "Dr. Brighton was fairly sure he was getting support from a relative. This one, Patricia, has the most recent issue date—four months ago."

"Right," said Brass. "Sofia, check on previous addresses for these, but start with this one." He handed her the paper with _Patricia A. Turnbull_ printed at the top.

They waited while Sofia typed in commands, looking once again at the papers Brass had given them, knowing they were close, so close…

"Jim, read me the address on the Richard Turnbull license," Sofia said. Brass read the address aloud and Sofia stood up, backing away from the computer screen so that the others could see.

"Well, I'll be damned," Brass muttered.

Greg was trying to wedge himself in front of the terminal so he could see, but he wasn't having any luck. He tried to peer over Sara's shoulder. "What?" he asked in frustration. "What do you see?"

"The address," Sara explained. "A prior address for Patricia Turnbull is Denver. The same address that's on Richard Turnbull's license and booking reports." She moved away so Greg could see.

"So, they lived together in Denver? What are we looking at? Wife?" Greg asked.

"We'll find out," Brass said. "Sofia, call for the warrant. I'll notify SWAT."

Sara looked at him in surprise. "You're getting a SWAT team? You think that's where he's holding…"

"I don't think anything," Brass interrupted hurriedly. "I just want us to be ready. We can't afford not to be."

He left the room, followed by the uniformed officer. Sofia was already on the phone, and suddenly the four CSIs became superfluous.

"What do we do now?" Greg asked.

"We did our jobs," Catherine told him. "We found the evidence that got the ID. Now we wait; we let the police do their jobs. They'll call us if they need us," she added gently.

Greg looked at her silently. He hated waiting helplessly, but he knew with certainty that this was one time that he didn't want to be needed. He hoped there would be no reason to call in CSIs to process a crime scene at the home of Patricia A. Turnbull.


	25. Chapter 25

The house was in the rental district near the university, that five block radius surrounding the campus where most of the properties were inexpensive single-story homes, small apartment buildings, duplexes, or larger houses that had been chopped up into several living quarters. It was a white stucco in need of a new coat of paint and a good dose of Roundup to kill the weeds that were poking through the white chipped stone that served as the miniscule front yard. It had a cement walk leading up to the stoop and at the end of the walk there was a wooden ramp that had been built to skirt the two steps and provide wheelchair access to the front door.

When Brass first saw the ramp, his heart skipped a beat, almost painfully, and he wondered if he really was getting too old for this job. But the ramp combined with his memory of the case photos of the wheelchair tracks made him realize that they were as close to this son of a bitch as anyone, in any of the cities, had ever been. And if that made his heartbeat erratic, well, it was worth it. Provided that they had gotten here in time.

Brass had told Sara that they needed to be ready, and he meant it. The street was blocked off at both ends and the SWAT vehicle was positioned in the alley behind the house. The house had a basement, probably a basement apartment, judging by the separate entry and the door at the bottom of the stairs. Three of the SWAT members had stealthily positioned themselves in front of that door, and three more were in front of the main door to the house. Simultaneously, two men at each door charged at the wood with a battering ram, and both doors flew open, hinges askew.

Men in black Kevlar and ballistic helmets barged into the house like storm troopers, one of them literally jumping over a slight woman in a wheelchair who was near the front entrance. Brass hung back with Sofia, peering into the open front doorway, out of the way of the imposing men. He could hear their boots pounding on the wooden floors, could hear them roughly pushing open doors and sweeping through one room after another. One of them yelled out, "It's clear! They're not here!"

The woman in the chair was trembling so hard they could see her body shake, and Sofia approached her.

"Frisk her," Brass ordered, feeling foolish even as he said it but not willing to take any chances. He had learned early in his career that appearances counted for nothing, that anyone--man, woman, child, or invalid--could wield a weapon.

Sofia looked at him questioningly but then did as she was told. The SWAT team went back outside and Sofia could see the terror in the woman's pale blue eyes as she watched them leave.

"Are you Patricia Turnbull?" Sofia asked, already knowing the answer. She had the driver's license photo with her. Brown hair, blue eyes, 64 inches, 110 pounds, date of birth June 9, 1965.

The woman could only stare dumbly at Sofia. She finally found her voice, and it quavered when she spoke.

"I…I don't understand. Why are you doing this? I haven't done anything wrong. I hardly leave this house. I...""

Brass shoved the search warrant in front of her. "We have a warrant to search anything on this property, and that includes you," he said gruffly. Sofia scowled at him, but Brass had no time for diplomacy. He took a Xeroxed photo out of the inside pocket of his rumpled suit jacket and handed it to the woman. "Do you know this man?"

The wheelchair-bound woman took it from him and held it, looking at it only briefly. She avoided Brass's eyes and looked up at Sofia.

"Is he in trouble?" she asked softly.

Sofia knelt next to her. "I think so," she said gently. "He's your…?"

"Brother. He lives in the apartment downstairs. What…what's he done?"

"We'll talk about that," Sofia said, "but right now it's really important that we find him. Ms. Turnbull, we need your help. Can you tell us where he would be right now?"

Patricia Turnbull looked at her watch, which was clasped too loosely on her thin wrist. "At work, I guess."

"Where does he work?"

"He does data entry. I can't…I can't remember the name of the company."

Brass took over, his patience wearing thin. If they moved fast, they could find out what vehicle he was driving, put a tracking device on it while he was still at work, and let the son of a bitch lead them right to the three hostages. Clean and simple. But if he left work without them finding him first, things would become much more complicated. They were running out of time.

"Did he leave you a number where you could call him if you needed to?" Brass asked.

"I'll get it." She wheeled herself expertly to a two-legged table against the wall and took a small spiral notebook that was next to the phone. She opened it and her slender finger pointed to an entry: _Richie work_. "That one."

Brass nodded and picked up the phone, punching in the numbers. A cheerful voice answered. "Good afternoon. QV Data Services. How may I help you?"

Brass identified himself and asked for a manager. When the woman came on the phone, he once again identified himself and told her that it was of the utmost importance that they locate Richard Turnbull. He actually felt his blood pressure spike when she told him he wasn't working there.

"Very few of our employees work here in the building," the manager explained hurriedly after Brass barked to her to check again. "We outsource our people. That is, we contract for jobs and send them on location. I can find out where he's been working today, but you'll have to give me a minute. Can I call you back?"

Brass gave her his cell number and turned his attention back to the sister. "What's he driving?"

"My van. It's a…a…"

She was clearly rattled, unable to quickly recall information, and Sofia put a hand on her arm. "It's all right." She got on her radio, made a request for the make and license number of the vehicle registered to Patricia A. Turnbull.

Brass began to pace the floor, waiting for the callback from the data company, waiting for the vehicle info. "Gimme your cell phone," he told Sofia, not wanting to tie up his. She handed it over and he quickly entered the familiar numbers.

"Yeah, we found his residence, but he's not here," Brass said into the phone. "Get your team over here and start poking around. Maybe you'll find something to let us know where he took 'em." He gave Grissom the address and then added, "Get here fast, Gil."

Sofia's radio crackled and the vehicle information came over. "You want a Code 5?" Sofia asked Brass.

"Yeah," Brass affirmed. "Call it." It was important that if the vehicle was sighted it be kept under surveillance but that no contact be made with the occupant. Even if they found Richard Turnbull right now, they couldn't apprehend him. He had killed at least sixteen times, and he was going down. They knew it, he'd know it, and they had nothing to bargain with to coerce him to tell them where his hostages were. And with at least one of the three injured, they couldn't chance letting them languish until they were found—if they were found.

Brass's cell phone rang while Sofia was on the radio to dispatch. The data company manager gave him the address of Turnbull's work assignment, an agency that produced advertising coupons. Brass wrote down the information and looked at his watch. He figured he was at least twenty-five minutes away now that the rush hour traffic had started, and it was now twenty after four. The manager told him Turnbull's workday ended at 4:30. He got on his radio and called for the closest unmarked car to get over there, try to keep him under surveillance as he left the building and tail him. There would be no time to put a tracer on the van. For all he knew, their suspect could be headed this direction.

"Does your brother usually come home right after work?" Brass asked.

The small woman shook her head. "No. He usually doesn't come back until late, around 10 or 11. He comes up to see if I need anything before I go to bed, and he usually checks on me again before he leaves for work."

"Do you know where he goes?" asked Sofia.

"No. The casinos, I suppose. But last week he said he was seeing a woman. That's good for him; he's so…" Her voice trailed off, the rest of the sentence unuttered.

"Do you know who this woman is, where we can find her?" Sofia prompted.

"I've never met her. But before he left this morning he said he had seen her over the weekend. I think he said her name was Carol, Caroline, something like that."

"Caroline," Sofia confirmed.

The name spurred Brass into action. He turned to Sofia. "I'm headed out. Stay with Grissom and his team when they get here." He jerked his head at the sister. "You can interview her here if she's cooperative, but then I want her at the station until this is resolved. I'll keep a squad car here."

He left before Sofia could ask him how they were going to transport a wheelchair-bound woman to the station in a squad car. She looked appraisingly at the woman.

"Ms. Turnbull, are you, uh, mobile at all? That is, are you…"

"Paralyzed? No. It's pain that keeps me bound to this chair, not lack of mobility. On a good day, I can drive, get around without the chair. On a bad day, the pain is debilitating. Walking is out of the question. You caught me on a bad day, I'm afraid."

Sofia shook her head sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

Patricia Turnbull shrugged. "It is what it is." She looked directly at Sofia, into her eyes. "Please tell me why you're looking for Richie."

Sofia wasn't sure how close to the vest she should play this. Sometimes relatives clammed up out of fear of saying anything that might implicate a loved one. She didn't have a read yet on this relative, so she chose to be vague, for now.

"We think he might have some involvement in a crime we're investigating."

"Some involvement? A SWAT team broke down my door."

Sofia averted her gaze. The woman in front of her was in a wheelchair, but her mind was sharp enough. She walked to the end of the room that served as the dining area and took a wooden chair. She carried it over and set it down next to the wheelchair. "May I sit?"

The woman nodded her assent and when she spoke, the terror that had been in her voice when her house was first invaded was gone. "I will, as the other detective put it, be 'cooperative.' Ask me what you want to know, and I'll try to answer you. But don't patronize me."

Sofia had underestimated her, she saw now. The small stature, the wheelchair, the quaver and uncertainty in her voice when they first questioned her had been misleading. "Ms. Turnbull…"

"And you can call me Patricia."

Sofia didn't miss a beat. "Patricia, the woman your brother said he had been seeing…"

"Caroline, you said," Patricia interrupted. "How did you know her name?"

Sofia looked at her levelly. "He wasn't seeing her. He was stalking her. We have reason to believe he took her."

Patricia's pale blue eyes widened. "Took her? You mean, like a hostage? Does he…does he want money?"

Sofia shook her head. "No. He hasn't indicated that. We believe he took two men as well. They're criminalists who were investigating…something your brother's involved in. They're in danger, Patricia, and we need to find them. We know at least one of them is injured. Can you think of anywhere your brother might have gone, anywhere he might have taken them?"

The other woman was silent. Sofia could tell that she wasn't withholding information but was genuinely baffled. She tried another tack.

"How long have you been in Vegas?"

"A little over four months."

"What brought you here?"

Patricia hesitated for a few seconds and her face reddened. "Richie had…had a little trouble. He got arrested for...well, it was embarrassing more than anything. I told him it didn't matter, but he seemed to think he couldn't stay in Denver any longer. I tried to talk him out of it; I thought he had come back to stay."

"Come back? From Atlanta?"

"It seems you have some information already," Patricia said coolly, but she continued. "Yes, from Atlanta."

"But Denver's home?"

"Yes. We were raised there. But about a year-and-a-half ago, things changed. I was coming home from the hospital with my mother—we both worked there—and out of nowhere, driving on the wrong side of the highway, a drunk driver. Hit us head on. My injuries were…extensive. But my mother…well, she hung on but we took her off life support when it became obvious she wouldn't recover. We probably left her on too long as it was. She was a surgical nurse, and she never would have wanted the support to keep her going. It was in her will. But Richie had such a hard time letting her go. A mama's boy, you know? He was still living with her, in the house we grew up in, when she died."

Sofia got up and grabbed a tissue from the box that was sitting on the phone table. She handed it to Patricia Turnbull, and the small woman blew her nose daintily.

"Your brother went to Atlanta after your mother's death?" Sofia prompted.

"Yes. After she died, he seemed so lost. So sad and angry and…lost." She paused and looked at Sofia. "My mother had such control over him; she was so…well, it doesn't matter now. I even hoped that her death would bring some peace to Richie, as awful as it sounds to say that. But he changed when she died, and it wasn't a good change. He seemed more moody, more quick-tempered. I thought maybe it would be good if he went away for a while. He didn't take much convincing. He said he knew someone in Atlanta and had wanted to go there for years." She dabbed at her eyes once more. "So he went," she finished simply.

"Did you go with him?" asked Sofia.

"Yes. I continued my rehabilitation there. But we weren't there long. I didn't do well with the humidity; it increased the pain. And Richie didn't seem content there. He said the friend he had wanted to see wasn't paying enough attention to him, and he seemed really upset about it. He said he had some things to take care of back in Denver, so we went home. Mother had left him the house. I stayed there too so he could help me when I needed it. But then there was that business with the arrest, and we moved."

Sofia didn't tell her why her brother found contact with the Denver police so unnerving that he needed to flee. "Why here? Why Las Vegas?"

"That was my decision. We decided…the two of us…that we needed to stay together. I'm not well enough some days to be on my own, and Richie counts on me for companionship now that Mother is gone. He never was good at making friends. Anyway, I had read some research about advances made at the pain clinic at the university. I enrolled in their study. It's working out. I can get there on my own from here and let Richie drive the van. I was right, too, about his problem in Denver. It didn't matter; it didn't stop him from getting a good job. He seemed to be doing so well…"

Sofia had so much more she wanted to ask, but she knew it stemmed from a desire to satisfy her own curiosity. She had read the profile Dr. Brighton had provided, and she was fascinated by how the pieces were now falling into place, how accurate the profile was. The only time Dr. Brighton had missed the mark was when she had speculated that the killer was from Atlanta and the triggering event had happened there. Sofia wasn't a psychologist, but it was clear to her that the death of the mother caused an already unstable son to become even more so. If she probed further, she was sure that she would learn that the mother who "had such control over" her adult son had abused him when he was a child, and that likely included sexual abuse. She wondered how much the sister knew and how much she would share, but it was a moot point. There was nothing else Patricia Turnbull could tell her that would help them locate the three captives.

Reluctantly, Sofia rose from her chair and nodded to the duty officer to take her place. The CSI team was on its way, but she figured she could do some looking around on her own in the meantime. She knew what she was looking for, and a hunch told her it would be upstairs and not down. She went to work, opening the small drawer in the phone table and the ones below the kitchen counters. She went into the bedroom and opened drawers in the dresser and in the nightstand. When she returned to the living room, she was holding a vial in her hand.

"You want to tell me about this?" Sofia asked.

Patricia sighed. "I use it for the pain."

"Ketamine is a strong drug," Sofia said. "And dangerous."

"Yes," Patricia agreed. "It can be, but not for me. I told you I worked in hospitals. Like my mother, I was a surgical nurse before I was injured. I know what the drug does, detective, and you don't need to sound so accusatory. If there are times that I need it to take me away from the pain—and it's the only thing I have found that does—I won't apologize for it. They even use it at the pain clinic. I know what I'm doing. Besides, I'm not alone when I use it. My brother administers…"

She stopped short, cutting herself off, realizing, Sofia knew, that she had just implicated her brother in an illegal activity. For Sofia, another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. Not only did Richard Turnbull have easy access to the drugs he had used to subdue the women and their pets, he had knowledge of how much to administer to achieve his desired effect. She felt a twinge of pity for the sister who had unwittingly contributed to the abductions of her brother's victims.

"Where do you get it?" Sofia asked, and was immediately sorry she had asked it. It was beside the point, and this wasn't about Patricia Turnbull's illegal drug use. But the woman seated before her eyed her warily.

"Do I need a lawyer?"

Sofia shook her head. "No. We're just talking. Did you use it in Atlanta?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did," Patricia said defiantly. "Atlanta, Denver, here. It's not hard to get hold of if you know how to look for it. If you're going to grill me on my sources, detective, then I really do need that lawyer."

Sofia knew she had to tread carefully. "You're free to call anyone you'd like. You're not in trouble here, Patricia; you're not accused of anything. We're here about your brother, not you. He…"

Sofia was beginning to think she had backed herself into a corner. She wasn't quite ready to reveal what they knew about Richard Turnbull's activities, nor was she sure that Brass would want her to. She was spared having to decide her next words by the arrival of the CSIs. She briefed them on what she had learned so far—the vehicle make, the perpetrator's last known location. Sofia could sense their impatience, and as soon as she finished speaking they quickly scattered, Grissom, Sara, and Greg headed for the staircase in the kitchen that led to the basement apartment and Catherine to the back of the house toward Patricia Turnbull's bedroom and bathroom. Sofia followed her and showed her where the stash of ketamine and syringes were, standing aside as Catherine took photos.

Below them, the other CSIs found the one-bedroom basement apartment to be almost eerily Spartan and tidy. There were no personal touches, no photographs or pictures on the walls or even a splash of color on the bed or sofa. The only thing that the occupant seemed to have contributed to the furnished apartment were the neatly folded tee shirts, socks, and white briefs in the dresser and the carefully hung shirts and slacks in the closet. Beyond that, only a personal computer perched on the end of the kitchen table spoke of occupancy. Even the refrigerator was empty, save for the three clear zip-lock bags stacked one atop the other in the upper freezer portion. Greg was the one who found them first, and he looked apologetically at Sara before rushing from the room and through the partially open outside door, shouldering past the splintered wood. Sara was left to take the photos, her lips pursed grimly as she snapped the pictures of the contents.

There was a yellow highlighter and a ream of computer paper next to the computer, and the paper had printing on it. Grissom picked up the stack of white sheets with gloved hands and scanned the pages. Page after page of names and addresses. He looked once more at the heading on the first page, and he wasn't surprised to find his own name on the alphabetical list. Doc Robbins was on it, too, and Grissom's next door neighbor.

Greg came back in, looking sheepish, and tried to sound casual and in control when he peered over Grissom's shoulder. "Whatcha got?"

"Printout from the Department of Licensing," Grissom said.

Sara looked up from her work curiously. "Vehicles?"

"No," Grissom said. "Pets. The City of Las Vegas requires that all cats and dogs be licensed within the city limits."

"How'd he get hold of that?" Greg wondered.

Grissom shrugged. "His job is data entry. Probably was assigned there at one point." He looked more closely at the sheets of paper. At least ten names had been highlighted, all women. Next to their names were their addresses, their phone numbers, the license numbers that had been issued for their cats.

"Wow," Greg said in amazement. "Everything he wanted to know is right here. Where they live, if they have a cat. He was probably assuming if it was a woman who applied for the license, she was single."

"He had time to find out," Grissom said. "He moved to Vegas about four months ago. I suspect he spent that time watching the women he had selected, stalking them, learning their routines. When he was sure enough of at least three of them, the killings began here."

They were silent for a moment and then broke off from their cluster around the table and searched the rest of the apartment. There wasn't anything else to find, certainly nothing that would lend a clue to the location of their three missing colleagues. They went back up the stairs, leaving the freezer contents for the coroner to collect later but taking the licensing data with them. Brass was there, talking to Sofia.

For Brass, the afternoon had not been productive. He had ordered the street unblocked, although there was an unmarked car at each intersection, prepared to alert those at the residence that their suspect was headed for home. The SWAT team was back at their headquarters, on standby and ready to roll if called upon. Every law enforcement vehicle on patrol—sheriff, state trooper, and Vegas PD—as well as choppers from all three agencies was searching for the white Odyssey van. But so far they had nothing. Brass had gotten to the ad agency as quickly as he could, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had arrived before 4:30. He was informed that Turnbull had forgone his lunch break in order to leave a half-hour early, and so there had been no one to tail him, no one alerted to his presence when he had left the building. Brass had returned to the residence, holding out a dim hope that Grissom and his team had turned up something.

Grissom showed him the printed sheets of paper and Brass got on his radio to dispatch, ordering a uniform to the door of every lemon-colored name, minus three. It was a long shot and his gut told him that the killer wouldn't try to take another woman as long as he had Dr. Brighton, but it was all he had to go on. He couldn't stop thinking about the timing of it all. If they had gotten the information from Patricia Turnbull even a half-hour earlier, they'd be tailing that bastard, maybe would have found the hostages by now. Maybe…

A voice on his radio calling his name interrupted Brass's thoughts. He went outside to receive the information, the others watching after him curiously. When he came back in, he answered their questioning looks.

"A chopper found the vehicle. Unoccupied. At the old industrial park south of Henderson."

Brass hurried back outside, followed by Grissom and the other CSIs. Brass turned around and held up his hand. "Better let us take it from here, Gil. We'll call you when we know something more."

Grissom shook his head adamantly. "Uh-uh. Those are my guys, Jim. _Our_ guys. We're following you out."

Brass sighed, knowing he couldn't talk Grissom, or any of them for that matter, out of this one. "Okay," he relented. "But you stay back when we get there. All of you." He looked at each of the CSIs in turn, then allowed himself a smile. "What are you waiting for? Let's go bring 'em home."


	26. Chapter 26

For the three captives, the early morning hours arrived in the same darkness that they had become accustomed to ever since they had agreed to keep the lights off to save the fuel in the generator. Warrick on one side of the cinderblock wall would turn a bank on every so often, to check on Nick or to relieve himself in the sink, but mostly he kept it dark, not sure how much gas was left, not wanting the lights to sputter out when he might really need them. Carrie, on the other side, did the same. She would press the little gold button on the top curve of her watch and in the green glow would stare at the dial. Four o'clock, five. Every sweep of the hands around the face brought the killer closer to them. Every imagined sound signaled his return, coming back to them now that he had dumped his previous victim. Six, seven.

When he hadn't come by eight, Carrie and Warrick conversed through the wall. The workday was beginning, and Carrie figured she had him pegged well enough to know that he wouldn't skip the routine of going to his job. So they were in for more waiting. It was wearing them down, this waiting, this helpless waiting. Warrick had it easier. He could pace between naps, could talk to Nick when Nick wasn't sleeping, get him to drink from the bottled water. For Carrie, the ennui wasn't as endurable. The realization that their captor would not return until the workday was over brought a mixture of emotions. She didn't want him to come back at all, her heart jumping crazily every time she thought she heard him outside the door at the top of the steps. But at least if he came, something would happen. Something bad, she was sure. But something. At least the waiting would be over.

Warrick seemed to sense her becoming more despondent. He tried to talk to her through the wall to ease the isolation he knew she must be feeling, tried to lighten her mood. He reminded her that the body had most likely been found and the clues he had planted there would be processed even now. Soon the case would break. It wasn't necessarily the killer who would be the one opening that outside door. But her responses were monotone and brief, and eventually he left her alone, letting the hours tick so slowly by, letting the afternoon come, in silence.

Nick had been sleeping at longer intervals. He had become increasingly lethargic as the hours wore on, his skin gray-tinged and clammy to Warrick's touch. The symptoms of shock that Warrick had been trying to tell himself weren't there ever since he had seen the blood stream out of the back of Nick's shoulder wound could no longer be denied. Warrick tried to talk to him, mindless chatter that was more comforting to him than it was to Nick, but Nick didn't seem to have the energy, or the attention span, to participate. Warrick, too, felt isolated.

Carrie tried to pass the time by catching up with her paperwork in her head. She imagined the notes she would write, envisioned herself typing them on her laptop. She pictured the next session she would have with one of the clients from her private practice, a recently married man who had seen her at his wife's urging. She hadn't gained his trust enough to get him to talk about what it was he did in bed that made his wife so uneasy, but it was early, and she would get to it. She had both the patience and the skill. There were court-appointed sessions as well, the most recent with a level-two sexual offender that she was beginning to think would provide cause to be reclassified as a level three as soon as he hit the street again. It was her job to make sure that didn't happen.

But after a while she couldn't concentrate on her cases anymore and gave it up. She had whiled away the better part of the day, but by the late afternoon, she could focus on nothing except for how completely miserable she was. And miserable was the best word to describe it. She was so cold she was worried she might become hypothermic. The combination of cold, thirst, hunger pangs, and intense pain from the injured knee had prevented sleep. She was exhausted, and as often happened when she was sleep-deprived, she felt her hold on her emotions becoming tenuous. She felt like she would just as soon burst into tears as anything else. Couldn't hurt. Might even help.

She sat on the second-to-last step, her leg stretched in front of her, hugging herself for both comfort and warmth. Her butt was about numb from sitting there so long, not making the effort frequently enough to painfully hoist herself up by the rail and gimp around the landing to get her circulation going, and she didn't feel like making the effort now, either. She had decided a while back, judging by the pain and the swelling, that she had not only torn the meniscus in her knee, but the ACL as well. She had ripped up both that junior year in high school and knew well enough what it felt like.

For a time she had sat on the floor facing the stairs so she could elevate her leg on one of the steps, but she gave it up after a while when her lower back started to hurt with no support to brace it against. So she switched to sitting on the stairs, where at least she could lean against the tier above her, and she sat there now, tallying her miseries. Not only was she lame with a fire in her knee that brought tears to her eyes, she was without the meager comforts of what she now thought of as "the other side." She had nothing. Not Warrick's companionship or Nick's hand to hold or the towel to ward off the cold or water to quench the thirst. Not even, as her grandfather used to say of the truly downtrodden, a pot to piss in. Her musings about the other side of the wall caused her to refocus her thoughts to Nick, wishing she could be there for him, hoping that he was resting comfortably.

He wasn't. On the other side of the cinderblock barrier Nick moaned lowly and shifted restlessly on the cot. Warrick switched on the lights over the cot and bent over him uncertainly.

"Hey, Nick? Hey. You awake? How you doin', buddy?"

"Hot." Nick's voice was so low Warrick had to bend his head to Nick's to hear it, and even then he wasn't sure he heard right.

"Did you say you're hot?"

"Take the blanket," Nick said, stronger this time. "So damn hot in here."

Warrick heard that well enough, and it scared him. For all he knew it was another glorious fall day outside, but none of the sun's heat had penetrated the windowless, cinderblock walls of their basement room. It had been about forty-five, maybe fifty degrees, Warrick figured, in their cement chamber for a good long while now. He put his hand on Nick's forehead. Nick's skin had lost its pallor and was flushed and mottled. He felt the heat radiating off of it even before he lowered his hand. He touched Nick's brow and looked away quickly, not wanting Nick to see the expression of concern that he knew was on his face. He drew the blanket down and gasped when he saw Nick's shoulder. The flesh was an angry red, even beyond the bandage, now yellowed with pus. And there were pinkish-red streaks peeking out from under the bottom edge of the white terry cloth, spidering down alongside Nick's armpit on a path to his chest.

Warrick had feared infection all along, and now it was here. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He considered flushing the wound out again with the whiskey and redressing it. But Nick was conscious now and Warrick wasn't going to subject him to the agony of the alcohol in that hole when he was pretty sure it was too late to do any good anyway. He gathered up the remaining khaki cloths and took them to the sink. He poured water from a bottle over them and gently wrung them out. He brought them back and put one on Nick's forehead, another on the back of his neck, and another on his chest. He checked Nick's leg, but it didn't feel warm and the bandage was clean. He pulled the blanket back up to Nick's waist, despite Nick's protests.

"Sorry, bud. It stays. It may feel like the tropics to you, but this room's a refrigerator."

Nick didn't fight it. "It's the shoulder, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Nicky, it is. Probably would have been okay if that bastard hadn't driven that gun muzzle into it. I can flush it out with the whiskey; might help. Hurt like hell, though."

"Don't bother. Doesn't matter now, anyway."

Nick's voice sounded dull and hollow, and Warrick's heart thudded painfully against the wall of his chest.

"Don't say that, Nick. We're still okay. When he gets back and opens up that outer door, Carrie can still sneak out and go get help."

"That'll be good," Nick said, his voice brightening a bit. "Carrie will get out of this. That's good."

"We'll get out of it, too," Warrick said quickly. "You'll see her again."

Nick said nothing, but after a moment his eyes, bright with fever, sought Warrick's. "I'm sorry I got you messed up in this, bro."

Warrick drew back in surprise. "What are you talking about? There's nothing you could have done, Nick. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe, but that wasn't your fault."

Nick shook his head. "You're wrong. I told Carrie she'd be safe with me, safe if she stayed with me. I was so sure of it. I was so sure of it that I encouraged Carrie to send Sofia away, so she wouldn't tail her. But it wasn't just thinking Carrie was safe; it was my damn pride. I didn't want Grissom to know about us. I didn't want him to have that part of me."

Warrick waited for Nick to explain that one, but he didn't, and Warrick was pretty sure he knew what he meant, anyway. Beginning with Nick's experience with Kristy Hopkins years ago, Nick seemed to have the unenviable misfortune of exposing what should have been his most private moments to his supervisor. Warrick knew that before Nigel Crane's arraignment, Grissom had watched all of the tapes that Nigel had made from his various vantage points in Nick's attic. Nick himself had never seen the tapes, and Warrick wasn't sure if it was because he had been denied a request to look at them or because he didn't want his fears of what was on them confirmed. Nick had seen the tapes Nigel had made of his previous victim, and Warrick knew Nick assumed the worst. Warrick and Nick had talked about it once, and he still remembered Nick's disgust when he asked, rhetorically, "How'd you like to have Grissom watch you shit on the pot or relieve yourself of a morning woody?" Warrick found the scenario horrifying, and he always held sympathy for Nick about those tapes.

Those weren't the only tapes Grissom had of Nick in private moments, but they never talked about the others. It was too raw, too recent, and even if Nick was ready to talk about them, which Warrick knew he wasn't, Warrick himself wasn't ready. He could still picture his friend, pushing up with all his might against the Plexiglas ceiling of that damn box, his determined face lit by the harsh oxygen-stealing light. And then determination gave way to panic when Nick realized that his efforts of strength were not going to get him out of there.

"I don't blame you for not telling Grissom about Carrie," Warrick said. "You had a right to keep that private."

Nick shook his head wearily. "No, man, I didn't. Both you and Carrie are paying for it."

No one was paying for it as much as Nick, Warrick thought, but he said nothing. Would things have turned out any differently if Grissom had known of Nick and Carrie's relationship? No sense wondering about it now. All he could do now was try to keep Nick as comfortable as he could. Warrick could feel the heat pumping off of Nick's body. He removed the strips of cloth he had placed on Nick's fevered skin. They were warm, almost hot, from the heat they had absorbed. He rinsed them out again and gently replaced them. He held a water bottle to Nick's dry lips and coaxed him to drink.

Warrick put the cap back on the bottle and looked at his watch. It was ten after six. They had been in this room for just over twenty-four hours. Both he and Carrie had surmised that the killer had gone to work instead of coming back to them after dumping the body, but his workday would be over by now, and they both knew he would be coming back any time. Despite what he had told Nick, he wasn't at all sure they were going to get out of this. Carrie could make a run up the stairs and out the door. She wouldn't be able to get them help in time, he knew, but at least she could escape. That's more than he could say for himself or Nick. If that bastard came in with a gun pointed, it was easy enough to just pull the damn trigger.

A growing sense of hopelessness began to weigh him down, and he let it, for a minute. The room smelled of puke and piss and blood, and suddenly, no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't remember what anything else smelled like. Not his grandmother's chocolate cake, or the ground after a rain, or Tina's perfume. He shook his head morosely, engulfed in self-pity. He was hungry and tired and so cold. So fucking cold. He eyed the blanket spread across Nick's legs and debated taking it. Nick didn't want it anyway, was producing his own body heat, and wouldn't miss it if Warrick took it just long enough to get warmed up a bit.

Warrick's hand reached for the comforting warmth of the wool blanket. He began to draw it off of Nick's legs, but he suddenly stopped when he heard a low moan from Nick. He withdrew his hand guiltily and spoke aloud. "Jesus. What the hell am I doing?"

There was no response and he hadn't expected one. Suddenly Nick's silence frightened him, and he wanted, needed, his partner's companionship. He bent over Nick and gently shook his uninjured shoulder.

"Nick? Hey, Nicky. Talk to me for a while. What's a cutter horse, Nicky?"

Nick remained unresponsive and Warrick shook his shoulder more persistently. "Stay with me, buddy. I wanna know what a cutter horse is. Tell me."

Nick groaned, but he opened his eyes and tried to focus on Warrick. The eyes were so bright with fever that Warrick could see his own reflection in the pools, dark as night and not the coffee brown they usually were.

"It's a…it's…"

He closed his eyes again and Warrick shook him once more.

"Come on. You know. Explain it to me. Why are they called 'cutter horses'?"

Nick opened his eyes, with effort, and Warrick could see in them the desire to be left alone, to sink back into the darkness that he had surrendered to.

"Ca…Cattle. They cut cattle from the…the herd. Carrie…Carrie had one."

"I know," Warrick said gently.

"Scout."

"What?"

"She called him Scout. She was riding him the first…the first time I saw her."

He was quiet then, and Warrick let him be, not sure he had done the right thing in bringing back the memories for Nick. He remembered the pain in his friend's eyes the last time he had talked about his first meeting with Carrie, when they were driving in the Denali to the park. It seemed months ago that they had done that. Had it only been a few…

"She had nine buttons on her shirt."

"Buttons?"

"The day I met her. Her shirt had…had nine buttons. The little pearly ones."

Warrick shook his head in wonder. Jesus. How far gone did you have to be over a woman to count the buttons on her shirt, let alone remember it thirteen years later? Hell, he couldn't even remember what Tina had been wearing the night they got married. That low-cut sparkly red shirt that she wore with her black jeans? Maybe. He could picture her in it, but he wasn't sure if he remembered it because he liked her in it, or because she had actually worn it that night. Sometimes he regretted that they didn't have a real wedding, with Nick as his best man, with his grandmother seated in the front row, dabbing at her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, with Tina radiant in a flowing white dress. Maybe when this was over, he and Tina would renew their vows and do it up right this time.

"Nick, when we get out of here, how'd you like to be the best…"

He was cut off by Carrie's voice calling his name from the other side of the wall. He could hear the panic in it, and he left Nick and stood by the door, his heart thumping crazily and his palms sweating.

"I heard a car pull up outside," Carrie said.

"How many cars? Do you hear sirens?" Warrick knew that if this was a rescue, there would be a fair amount of commotion attached to it.

"I don't hear anything now. I just…Oh, God. I can hear him on the gravel. He's here, Warrick. He's _here_!"

"Carrie, stay calm." Warrick's voice was firm and commanding. "Was the light off on the stairwell after he left?"

"Yes," Carrie said, and Warrick frowned at the quiver in her voice.

"Okay. Keep it off; don't do anything to make him suspicious. Just remember the plan. Get in that other room quick. You don't have much time before he gets in here and discovers you gone. The second he unlocks and enters this room, you get out of here and sprint up those stairs. Don't look back, Carrie, and run like hell."

"I will," Carrie lied.

"Now get in there," Warrick told her. "You can do this. It's going to be okay."

He could hear her leave, an odd shuffle to her step, and he returned to Nick. "Okay, buddy. It's time. Remember what we talked about."


	27. Chapter 27

Carrie stood behind the partially opened door of the small room at the bottom of the landing, balanced on one foot, head cocked to decipher the sounds from outside the building. It was inky black, and the darkness seemed to intensify the sounds. Every step of a shoe crunched on gravel as if the footfall was at her side. She heard the key click into place in the padlock, and she felt, almost, as if she herself held that key and was turning it in its slot. She heard the bar being lifted off the door at the top of the stairs, heard the door swing open, heard shoes slap on concrete at the top of the steps. Heard him breathing.

A shaft of light snaked through the crack between door and frame into her room, her hiding place, as he flicked on the light that lit the stairwell. Carrie withdrew further behind the door, not daring to peek out, letting her sense of hearing once again alert her to his actions. She heard his footsteps going down the stairs, slowly, as if he was pacing himself. She heard the thud of something being dropped at the bottom of the stairwell and knew it was the black bag that he kept with him, the one he had taken to Nick's. She wondered if his gun was inside of it or if it was on him, tucked inside his pants, maybe. She doubted he was holding it; he'd need both hands free to unlock the padlock and then raise the bar on the door to the other room.

When she saw his shadow briefly block the slit of light into her room, Carrie reached into the front pocket of her slacks. She withdrew the knife Warrick had insisted she take and opened the blade. She'd have to time her actions to perfection, she knew. She'd need to take him by surprise as soon as he had the lock undone and the bar up. Then Warrick would be free to rush him from the other side of the door and take him down before their assailant could get his gun. She was beginning to regret her decision not to tell Warrick that she was injured and couldn't escape, but she was counting on enough commotion caused by her sneak attack that Warrick would bolt through the door.

Carrie pushed the metal door open and hopped on one leg into the frame. Her heart was beating so fast it made her dizzy, and she paused to take several deep breaths. She saw him, hunched over the lock, key in hand. She saw the grip of his handgun exposed above the waistband of his neatly pressed and creased tan slacks. She stood still, ever so still, knowing that all he had to do was look up and then to his side to see her there. She waited until the key clicked into the padlock. She waited until the padlock snapped open and he removed it from the metal clasp that had held it in place. She waited until his right hand gripped the metal bar that spanned the door. She waited until he raised the bar up out of its bracket. She waited until he curled his fingers around the knob of the door. And then she pounced.

Both hands firmly clutched the handle of the pocket knife, right hand wrapped around the grip, left hand curled around the right, blade pointed down, both arms raised above her head, the height needed to provide force and leverage for the plunge to be effective. Unable to stand on both feet, Carrie took two hops, one to her left, the other forward until she was directly behind him. While he still had his hand on the knob, she brought the knife down with all her strength, falling forward into his back as she drove the knife between his shoulder blades.

The edge was sharp—Warrick had seen to that—but she had broken the tip off earlier when she was fussing with the padlock. She had forgotten about that. It didn't penetrate to the depth that she had expected or intended it to. Or needed it to. It pierced his skin, but instead of lodging it fell ineffectually to the floor below. He gave a howl of pain and spun around. Carrie at the same time tried to make a grab for his gun, but she lost her balance and fell to the floor, releasing her own pain-filled scream as her injured knee connected with the concrete.

He stood over her, sputtering in anger, his spittle hitting her face. "You fucking bitch! You goddamn fucking _bitch_!" He held the gun in his hand and pointed it between her eyes as she tried to scuttle backward. She was stopped by the bottom step and braced her butt against it, both legs out in front of her, both hands trying to wrap around the injured knee, prevented from contact by the boards on either side of her leg.

On the other side of the door, Warrick, as Carrie had been earlier, was tuned to every sound. He heard the padlock click open, the bar being lifted up. He heard the killer's shout, Carrie's scream, the obscenities directed at her. And he saw the light through the crack in the door and knew that it was opened. He reacted as Carrie had hoped he would. He pushed it open and literally hurled himself through it, with no plan in mind, reacting on instinct and adrenaline. He was stopped cold by the muzzle of a gun biting into his chest.

"_Don't_. _Move_." The voice was icy cold, even as it trembled in rage.

Warrick froze and looked at Carrie, plopped on the floor, her face pale, her hands grasping at her knee. He saw the black cloths that held the rough pieces of the boards in place, and he understood. She never was going to get out of here. The entire time he and Nick had been counting on her running up those steps, going out that door to freedom, she had been unable to walk, let alone run. He felt a spark of anger toward her, anger that she had given them false hope, anger that she had deceived them. But then he shook his head, tried to clear it. God, he was losing it. He had a gun drilling into him, Carrie was on the floor helpless and in pain, and his reaction was being ticked at her and hurt for the perceived betrayal?

The man moved forward, pushing the gun against Warrick and forcing him to take a step back. He continued to herd Warrick back through the open door and then, with the gun pointed at Warrick's face, started to push the door closed.

"_Wait_!" Warrick knew he sounded panicked, and he didn't care. He was. The man stopped and looked at him coolly. Warrick jerked his head to Carrie, who had not changed her position on the floor. "What about…what about her?"

The gunman followed Warrick's gaze and smirked. "I'll take care of her. Don't you worry about that. Fucking bitch will get exactly what she deserves." And then he pushed the door closed the rest of the way and put the bar back in place, although he didn't snap shut the padlock. He turned again to Carrie and aimed the gun at her head. There was terror in her hazel eyes, and she was visibly trembling. He looked at her calmly, appraisingly.

"Hurt the knee again? Same one, I see. The last time I felt sorry for you. Not this time, though."

Carrie looked up at him when he spoke, willing herself to be calm, to ignore the gun. To remember. The last time she had hurt her knee, she had been a graduate student living in Boulder. Was he someone she had classes with? Someone who had lived in her apartment complex? What else was there? Twice a week she had taken the bus into downtown Denver to Maggie's office as part of her internship. Was he a client of Maggie's? God, she couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember him?

"Why did you feel sorry for me?" She hadn't intended to address him, but the question just came, and she asked it in the same tone she would ask as if he were sitting in her office and she was prompting him to examine his feelings. She didn't expect an answer, and she tried to conceal her surprise when he provided one.

"You tried to pretend it didn't hurt," he said, "but I could tell it did. She told you to put it up on a chair, but you wouldn't. I told you I wouldn't mind, but you wouldn't do it anyway. You said 'thank you.' That's what you said to me, 'Thank you for being concerned for me.' I remember it. No one had ever talked to me that way before. You were nice to me and you were hurt. So I felt sorry for you."

Carrie watched him carefully. He still had the gun pointed at her, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking beyond her, the way people do when they are recalling a memory, lost in it.

"I knew when I met you, you were the one," he continued. "You were so pretty, and…nice. You called me 'Mr. Turnbull,' like you really thought I was someone. And then I said, 'Call me Richard.' And you did. Not 'Richie,' like everyone else did. Richard. Because I asked you to. I knew then that you'd do anything I asked you to. I knew then you cared about me."

The information slammed into Carrie and she actually slumped forward, her head hanging. She remembered him now. Richard Turnbull was a court-ordered patient of Maggie's. She had sat in on the sessions three times, and then when she went to the next appointment, Maggie sent her away. She said Turnbull had formed an "attachment" to her and it wasn't a good idea for her to be part of the sessions any more. She didn't question it, didn't give it much thought, really. It was a topic in her classes now and again, what to do when a client, especially one of the opposite sex, becomes too emotionally attached to the therapist. It had happened to some of her classmates as they did their internships, and it didn't surprise her that it had happened to her. It had happened plenty of times since then as she established her career.

"I sent you flowers."

Carrie looked up. She remembered that, too. A big bouquet, expensive, had come to her apartment. There was a get-well card and it had been signed "Richard." She didn't keep the flowers. She had taken them to the nursing home down the block. It made her uneasy that someone she had met during his therapy sessions had somehow found out where she lived, had flowers sent.

"They were pretty flowers, Richard," she said, hoping to keep him in that place he had gone, hoping by keeping him there she would have some influence over him.

Her words had the opposite effect. Turnbull brought his focus back on her and screamed at her, face red with rage, gun trembling as he readjusted his aim.

"_No!_ No! You don't get to call me that now. It's too late now. You ruined it."

Carrie knew she should keep quiet, that he was escalating. But she didn't.

"Ruined what?"

His voice shook in frustration at her ignorance. "_Us_. What should have been _us_. I wanted to follow you that June when you went to Atlanta, but I had…obligations." He smirked at her look of surprise. "Of _course_ I knew when you left and where you went. I knew everything about you. You ordered Chinese from that place on Pearl Street and pizza from the Dominos by the campus. You always tipped the delivery guy two dollars."

Carrie stared at him, astounded. God, he had beenstalking her even then. She shivered, and she folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"You never had anyone over. You ate by yourself. You were so lonely. I knew. I would have helped you. I would have been your first." He looked backward at the door to the other room. "I was _their_ first," he declared proudly.

Carrie remembered him in that room, muttering over the body of his victim: _too pure, too pure_. She realized that he equated his captives' single status with sexual inexperience, and that his debased acts with them were somehow heroic in his eyes. Carrie wondered if he would have taken them had he known that some of the older ones, like Ruth Murphy and Margaret Jacobsen, had been divorced. But he had no way of knowing that and in Maggie's case, he had a different agenda, anyway. _She kept you away from me_, he had told her. Carrie understood now that Maggie's murder had been an act of revenge. Is that what hers would be?

Turnbull looked at Carrie again. "I remembered you all these years. Remembered how kind you were, how lonely you were. I found you, when I was…was free. But you ignored me. You cared more about that damn cat than you did about me. It followed you around like it was a puppy instead of a fucking _cat_, followed you when you fed the horses, and you talked to it like it was a person, like the way you should have talked to _me_."

Carrie shuddered, again thinking of him stalking her, watching her on her property with the horses and cat. Was there a more effective way for him to shout _I'm here_ than boxing up the cat and sending it to her? Why _had_ he sought her out in Atlanta? Some sick infatuation with her, maybe. A delusion that he would have a relationship with her, perhaps. Or maybe he knew something inside of him had snapped and his instincts for self-preservation had sent him where he thought he might get help. Either way, he hadn't gotten from her what he needed, and now she was going to pay for it. His pale eyes sparked with rage when he spoke again.

"I thought you were so pure. I thought you were waiting for me. But you're a whore. A goddamn _whore_! How could I have been so wrong about you? _Why_ did you let that fucking pig take you? _Why_ did you betray me?"

Carrie just shook her head helplessly. There was nothing to say, no way to reason with the unreasonable. Her stomach lurched when she saw him once again look at the door of the room.

"Let's go hear the pig squeal some more. I know just how to make him, and you're going to watch. Get up."

There was no way Carrie could rise. Her knee had completely given out, and she wasn't in position to grab the stair rail to hoist herself up. Without warning, Turnbull stepped beside her and kicked her, hard, in the side of her thigh. She yelped and cowered against the step, waiting for the next blow.

"I said get up! Now, damnit!"

"I _can't_!" There were tears on her cheeks, desperation in her voice. He sputtered in aggravation, something unintelligible, then went to the door and lifted the bar. He pulled the door open and pointed the gun inside.

Warrick had positioned himself next to the door, listening to the exchange between Carrie and the man he now knew to be Richard Turnbull. When the door opened and Turnbull pointed his gun, it was once again centered on Warrick's chest.

"Go get her," Turnbull ordered him. "Bring her in here."

Warrick hesitated, and he heard the cock of the trigger.

"I'm not messing around here. Get her _now_!"

Warrick crossed the landing to Carrie, who was looking up at him with a tear-streaked face. He held out his hand to her. She wouldn't take it.

"Carrie," Warrick said gently. "Please."

Carrie shook her head stubbornly. She remembered what Warrick had told her before she left that room. _He's going to want to see your reaction to whatever else he does to Nick. If you're here, then Nick gets…tortured. _

"Let me stay here, Warrick," she pleaded. "_Please_ let me stay here."

"I can't, girl," Warrick said softly. His heart ached for her, but he knew she had to go into that room. Not because he had a gun digging into him, into his back this time, and not because he knew he'd be killed right here, right now, if he couldn't get her up, couldn't fulfill a useful purpose. But because it wasn't over yet. Because he knew what she didn't. He had a plan.

Carrie refused to budge. Warrick had no choice but to scoop her up in his arms, and she struggled weakly and then just gave up and ended up sobbing against his shoulder. He was facing the staircase and he wanted nothing more than to just climb up them, with her in his arms, and carry her out the door. But it wasn't going to happen. If he took one step up those stairs, he knew the last thing he'd ever hear would be the report of a gunshot.

"Turn around and get in there," Turnbull commanded him, and Warrick faced the open door of the room and then entered it, with Turnbull behind him and the gun once again pressed into the flesh of Warrick's back. Once inside, Turnbull flicked on all the lights and then pulled the door closed with his free hand, but it swung back again, partly opened. He couldn't get the door closed and the inside padlocked snapped shut with the gun in his hand, so he just looked at it in frustration and herded Warrick and his burden into the center of the room.

"Put her down on the floor. You sit, too. Right next to her."

Warrick did as instructed, putting Carrie down as gently as he could and then sitting down beside her, facing the door, drawing her onto his shoulder so she could lean against him and keep herself propped up. She was like a rag doll, gone completely limp, and Warrick knew she had given up. Given it all up. All effort to remain strong and calm, all effort to conceal terror. All hope.

Turnbull's enjoyment of her predicament was evident. He pointed the gun at Warrick, the only one among the three that was a threat to him, but he addressed Carrie.

"You're not so feisty now, are you, bitch? Not without a knife in your hand. Well, you just sit there and enjoy the little show I have planned for you."

He glanced over at the cot against the wall, frowning slightly at the too-still form under the gray woolen blanket, the blanket pulled completely up, even over the head. He turned his attention back to Carrie, the gun still on Warrick.

"I think you'll enjoy this. I'm going to make your pig more…even. First, another shot to the shoulder. Then one to the leg. And then, just for you, one right between his balls. I'm going to shoot off his fucking _prick_!"

Carrie found her voice. "Please. Please leave him alone. It's me you hate, not him. Kill me. You don't need to kill him."

He looked at her and there was a hint of pity in his voice. "You really are a _stupid_ whore, aren't you? I'm going to kill _all_ of you. First the pig, then the other one, then you. And when it's your turn, I'm going to carve you up. Alive." He nodded to the black bag he had pushed through the door with his foot when he had entered the room. "I have a scalpel in there. Shiny. Sharp. I'm good at using it. For you, I'm going to give you a little something to help you cooperate. Then I'm going to take your clothes off, and then I'm going to tape you naked in a chair, just like the other ones. And then I'm going to slice off both your tits. And then…then I'm going to show you what you could have had, if you had waited for me. And then I'm going to leave you. In this room with two dead men, with blood running into your cunt."

Turnbull's pupils dilated and his voice became breathless with excitement, with anticipation. Warrick wasn't surprised to see the outline of his growing erection between his legs. He knew now was the time to make his move.

"You're too late," Warrick said calmly. "You can kill me, you can kill her." He jerked his head to the cot. "But you already killed him. He's dead, man."

Turnbull looked back over at the cot, as did Carrie. She, too, saw the still form, the blanket pulled up over the head. She screamed, an anguished, keening _no_ that reverberated back to them from the cinderblock walls. She slumped forward, away from Warrick, and he watched her literally crumple. _Oh, God, Carrie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But you weren't supposed to be here._

Turnbull was watching Carrie's reaction, fascinated by it, Warrick thought. Warrick looked up at the hole in the ceiling and added, for Carrie's benefit, "She got out right after you left. He bled out just after that. I couldn't get the shoulder wound to stop bleeding. I couldn't…couldn't tell her." _Come on, Carrie, you know that's not true. Come on, girl. _

But Carrie was lost to him. She was sobbing so hard that her body was wracked with the force of them, so hard that she couldn't get her breath. Warrick tried to put his arms around her, but Turnbull ordered him up.

"Leave her. Get over here." He motioned to the cot and Warrick rose and walked over to it. Turnbull stood next to Warrick uncertainly, the gun pointed at the side of Warrick's head. He was unwilling to take his eyes or the gun off of Warrick. He should have just pulled the trigger and killed this one long ago, but the exhilarating power he felt by having the big man under his control was too much to give up. But he had to be certain about the other one. Had to know.

"Pull the blanket back," he told Warrick. "Nice and slow."

Warrick put both hands on the blanket and, as instructed, began to pull it slowly down, revealing the back of Nick's head. He continued to move the blanket, this time placing his hands underneath it as he lowered the covering down Nick's unmoving body. When he had uncovered Nick's shoulders and upper back, he placed his hands lower, concealed under the blanket, and wrapped both hands around the heavy cardboard cylinder that he had placed at Nick's side. He grasped it firmly, holding it as if it was a baseball bat, and then, lightening quick, he brought it out and took his swing. It was a hard hit, catching Turnbull in the center of the gut.

Warrick heard the _oomph_ as the wind went out of his target. Simultaneously, the lights flickered, once, and then went out, the generator that had provided energy for their illumination starved of fuel. The room was plunged into darkness at the same time that the gun, cocked and ready, released its charge.


	28. Chapter 28

The old industrial park was south of Henderson, not quite halfway between Henderson and Boulder City, accessible from the highway by two paved roads and one of gravel that was so infrequently used sagebrush was sprouting up through the crushed rocks. The site had been in use in the 70's and 80's, when some farsighted Clark County planners decided that the population was sprawling out that way and businesses would be attracted to the growing area. When it became apparent that the building boom was headed in another direction, the scattering of businesses and warehouses that had been in the park relocated, leaving the abandoned buildings to sit vacant, too far removed from anything useful for squatters to occupy, until the day they would be demolished to make room for the next phase of development on that land.

Patricia Turnbull's white Odyssey van was parked outside of a squat cinderblock structure whose faded red lettering over the front entrance identified it as once being in use by Ajax Industries. The other vehicles on the property were a football field-length away. They had come in running silent, with lights on but not sirens, not wanting to tip their hand and alert their suspect of their arrival.

Now the occupants of those vehicles, led by Captain Jim Brass, were clustered in front of the building and were waiting for a directive. Brass was hesitant to give them one, beyond "stay alert." The SWAT team had not yet arrived, and he was unwilling to make any kind of move without them. He was the ranking officer on scene, and he wished he wasn't. There were five teams of LVPD uniforms who had responded and two teams from the sheriff's department, and he was unwilling to put any of the twelve men and two women at risk by ordering them into the unknown.

The building had multiple entrances: the double doors on the west-facing front, a fire exit on the back side, a door on the north loading-dock side of the building, and a door on the opposite side. Brass commanded teams of three officers each to position themselves in front of the west, east, and north doors, and five men to stand watch by the south-side door. That was the entrance that had drawn his attention, and it was the one he himself stood near. The door was visibly ajar while the others were shut tight. There was a shaft of light coming from the interior, and Brass was able to peer into the crack enough to see the outline of stairs descending, but it wasn't open enough to see beyond that. If SWAT were here they would check to see if the threshold was rigged in any way. But they weren't here, and Brass wasn't going to have anyone on his watch blown into bits by triggering a tripwire.

Brass heard the approach of a vehicle, and he let out a sigh of relief. But it was the paramedic unit that had been called in, told to stand by until they knew what condition the hostages were in. He watched the red rig park amid the cluster of the other cars, trucks, and SUVs and swore under his breath. "Damnit. Where the hell is that SWAT team?" He got on his radio to dispatch and asked for an ETA. When he got off, he was surprised to see Grissom hovering over him.

"Well?" Grissom sounded both impatient and demanding.

"They got caught behind a multi on 582. They're snaking through the backup. They'll be here."

"I don't think we should wait much longer, Jim."

Brass scowled at him in annoyance. " 'We' aren't going to do anything. I told you to stay back." He noticed the rest of the CSIs had moved in closer as well, and he looked at all of them. "I mean it. Get back by the cars."

Brass looked at the dial of his watch in the waning light. It was 6:45, and the autumn evening was settling in. He saw an officer on the front side flick on a flashlight, and then his companions did the same. The five officers with him also turned on their lights, and Brass watched the eight white circles bobbing in the twilight. The lights wouldn't be truly necessary for another half-hour, and Brass knew they were on for the sense of security they provided, however tenuous that might be. He turned on his own flashlight and pointed it away from the building, illuminating a path for Grissom and his team. "Now's good," he told Grissom.

Grissom looked uncertainly at the door. Through that door and down those stairs were his guys, maybe alive, maybe dead by now. He didn't know. He did know he wasn't walking away from them.

Brass could see Grissom's determination. He sighed and decided on a compromise. "All right," he relented. "Then at least go stand by the…"

They all heard the scream. Even the paramedics enclosed in their rig heard it. It was a woman's cry, a single syllable of pure despair that pierced the still, dusky air, that pierced the souls of those whose ears it reached.

"_Jim!_" Grissom was pleading now. Brass looked at him and then at his officers, all five of whom had drawn their weapons and taken a step forward toward the door. He knew they were ready. He looked once more down the gravel road but he saw no lights approaching. He drew his own weapon and faced the door. He looked back over his shoulder at the uniformed men.

"Stay ten feet behind me," Brass ordered, "until I'm through that door and at the bottom of the steps. Then I want you," he indicated the tallest and largest of the officers, "at my side and the rest of you in two pairs behind us. You keep your weapons drawn and your ears sharp. No one shoots without my go. We've got three hostages down there and we're not going to be putting any bullet holes in 'em."

He pulled open the gray steel door warily and stepped gingerly over the threshold. He moved cautiously down one step and then the next. His foot was poised over the third tier when he heard the unmistakable report of a gunshot. Two of the men behind him shouted in unison "Gun!" and despite Brass's orders, barreled through the door and stood on the step behind him. The tallest officer pushed past them and aligned himself with Brass. Brass motioned with his gun toward the bottom of the steps, an indication for them to follow him down. The bare bulbs at the top and bottom of the stairwell flickered and then went out, the blackness obliterating the narrow passageway in front of them.

Brass and the officer at his side kept both hands firmly on their drawn weapons, but the four men behind them turned on their flashlights, light in one hand, weapon in the other. They pointed both toward the doors at the bottom of the stairwell. Both doors were ajar, but not enough to see inside of them. Brass hesitated for a few seconds, noting the apparatus for the bar and padlock on the right-side door. He jerked his gun at it and moved quickly down the remaining steps, his way guided by the white beams behind him. He nodded to the officer at his side to pull open the door, keeping his arms parallel to the floor, right hand firmly grasping his weapon, left hand lending support.

The door opened wide and Brass stepped into the frame, shouting into the dark interior. "LVPD! Freeze!" The beams of light behind him poked holes in the darkness, and images flickered in and out of the bright circles like the end-reel of an old movie. The suspect was on the cement floor, clutching his gut. Warrick was standing over him, holding a handgun. Beside him was a cot, and Brass could make out the contours of Nick's unmoving body. Caroline Brighton was in the center of the room, oddly heaped onto the floor, her right leg straight out in front of her, the rest of her body hunched into a ball. Her body was shaking, and Brass at first thought she was in convulsions, but then he realized that it was the force of the sobs coming from her that wracked her frame. The sound was chilling; sobs intermingled with whimpers and gasps for air; sharp, quick intakes of breath.

Brass fully entered the room, his gun trained on Richard Turnbull, who was curled on his side on the floor, hands still pressed against his stomach. "Get in here with those lights," Brass yelled, and the other officers pushed forward into the space. Brass nodded to the towering cop who had never left his side. "Get back out there and tell the paramedics to get down here. Tell 'em to call for a second rig."

Brass looked at Warrick, who was breathing hard but who was obviously in complete control of the situation. Warrick took his eyes off Turnbull long enough to acknowledge Brass, and Brass could see the relief on his face. Brass put a hand on his arm. "We've got it from here," he said calmly.

Warrick nodded and handed the gun he had been holding to one of the officers who had come in with Brass. He was only too glad to be rid of it. After he had taken his swing with the cardboard cylinder and knew it had connected, he had only a few seconds of triumph before Turnbull, either intentionally or involuntarily, jerked his finger on the trigger and the gun went off. But the aim wasn't there, and the bullet had lodged in one of the cinderblocks behind the cot. The gun should have been easy enough to wrest from Turnbull's grasp, the killer's hands grabbing for his stomach as he hunched over, the wind knocked out of him. But then the damn lights had gone out, and Warrick had to make the grab for the weapon in the inky blackness. He'd made it, Turnbull too bewildered to put up a fight. Turnbull had collapsed to the floor, and Warrick aligned his shoe with the side of his body, alert to any sudden movement, gun pointed down. He knew he was in charge now, but still, when he heard Brass's gruff "LVPD!" those four letters had never sounded so sweet.

More officers had entered the room, their flashlights making it easier for Warrick to quickly scan around him. Turnbull had been cuffed and two officers yanked him to his feet. The slight man said nothing, but his eyes found Warrick's and Warrick glared at him with undisguised hatred, hazel eyes hard and unwavering, and Turnbull looked away quickly. Brass read him his rights, and he was herded out of the room and up the stairs, an officer on either side of him, Brass following closely behind.

Warrick couldn't savor the victory. On the cot next to him was the too-still form of his best friend, and on the floor in the middle of the room was the woman who loved that friend, so deep in the throes of grief Warrick wasn't sure he would be able to reach her. Warrick watched her uncertainly for a moment but then went to Nick. He had to know that what he was about to tell Carrie was the truth.

Outside, huddled in a tight circle in the twilight shadows, Grissom, Sara, Catherine, and Greg were also waiting for the truth. Greg had tried to push past the officers and follow Brass down the steps when they heard the gunshot, but his way was firmly blocked by two cops who had positioned themselves on either side of the door. Now Brass was coming back out, with Richard Turnbull in cuffs, and the CSIs looked hard at the small, pale man, taking in their first view of the unhinged killer who had murdered so many. As soon as they had cleared the doorway, Greg once again tried to bolt for the steps. But he was forced back by a shouted "Clear the way!" as the paramedics, carrying black cases and followed by two sheriff's deputies holding a stretcher, sprinted for the open doorway.

The way was clear and now the CSIs were allowed down, but this time it was Grissom who held up his hand. He wanted to prepare his team, as best he could, for whatever they would find when they descended those steps. He turned to Brass, who was watching several patrol cars drive up closer and park next to the rig the paramedics had driven to the front of the building.

"Tell us what you know, Jim," Grissom said.

It wasn't a question, and Brass knew it. He looked at Grissom, then at all of the CSIs. "Warrick's fine," he began, and he could hear the audible sighs of relief, could see tense shoulders relax. But then he saw all four of them straighten up again, poised to hear what he had to say next. "Dr. Brighton's injured; gunshot, maybe. I'm not sure. And Nicky…" He remembered how his stomach had lurched when he saw Nick's unmoving and silent form in the flickering beams of light, remembered his backward, final glance at him before he left that room, remembered his desperate hope that he would hear some sound, see some motion, coming from that cot. "Well," he said honestly, "I don't know about Nicky."

In the room below them, Warrick was having the same doubt. His heart was pounding so fast when he put his hand on Nick's uninjured shoulder that he thought for a few seconds that he was going to black out. He drew deep breaths and steadied himself. He shook Nick's shoulder gently. "Hey, bud. Hey, wake up now." There were four cops gathered around the cot, shining their lights down, and Warrick could feel the tension as they all waited for a response. Warrick shook Nick more roughly and he felt his knees buckle in on him when Nick moaned. The man nearest him quickly grabbed him and Warrick leaned on him for support, but then straightened up quickly and with a firm nod to the concerned cop, turned his attention once again to Nick.

Nick mumbled, and Warrick had to bend his head down to hear. He could make out "possum," and he smiled. "Yeah, bro. You played possum. You did real good." He put his hand on Nick's head, let it rest there. "It's over now, Nicky. It's over. Brass is here. We're all okay now."

Nick tried to turn his head toward the source of the sobbing that still filled the room, despite the efforts of the two officers who had knelt beside Carrie and were trying to both comfort her and assess the cause of her distress. But Nick couldn't get the head to move, couldn't get any part of his body to move, couldn't even get his eyes to open to look at Warrick. "Carrie…didn't get out…crying," he managed.

Warrick's voice was calm and soothing. "It's okay. She's just worried about you. She's okay, Nick. She just needs to see you. Hold on a minute."

Warrick left Nick's side and went to Carrie. He knelt next to her and took her hand. It was ice cold. He could feel her body shivering. "Let me have your jacket," he said to one of the men who was on the floor with Carrie. He took it and draped it over Carrie's shoulders. She had been crying so hard she fought for breath, and he knew she was hyperventilating. He was desperate to calm her, knew it was his words that had done this to her.

"Carrie," he said firmly. "It's Warrick. Look at me." He put a hand under her chin to force her head up and was about to say something else to her, but two paramedics barreled into the room, both Hispanic men in their thirties, and one of them rushed to Carrie, pushing Warrick roughly out of the way. Warrick moved stubbornly back to Carrie's side.

"What's her name?" asked the paramedic.

"Carrie," Warrick said. "I have to talk to her."

The paramedic was getting out an oxygen mask, at the same time calling Carrie's name. He looked briefly at Warrick. "She's not talking to anyone. She's a minute away from passing out."

Warrick started to protest, but the urgent shout of "I need some information over here!" propelled him to the cot.

The other paramedic hovered over Nick, checking his vitals. He recorded the information, then removed the bandage from the infected shoulder wound and looked up at Warrick.

"What was the caliber of the bullet?"

"Nine millimeter," Warrick answered.

The paramedic shook his head doubtfully. "That's a hell of a big hole for a nine millimeter."

"The son of a bitch put the muzzle of the gun into it after he shot him, tore up the hole," Warrick said bitterly. He heard a woman's gasp and looked up. Catherine, Sara, Greg, and Grissom were all in the room, arriving while his attention was on Carrie. He looked over at them, and he could see in their faces both the relief and happiness of seeing him, but also their concern for Nick and Carrie. He wanted nothing more than to go to them, accept the welcoming hugs he knew Sara and Catherine would have for him, accept the heartfelt slap on the back Greg would give, accept the restrained show of emotion from Grissom, in whatever form he chose to express it. But this wasn't over yet, and after a quick glance of acknowledgement at their presence, he returned his attention to answering the barrage of questions from the paramedic.

"How much blood did he lose?"

Warrick remembered the blood streaming from Nick's back after he had passed out, the heaviness of the sodden tee shirt when he had taken it off. "Close to two pints, maybe. Mostly from the exit wound."

"How long ago was he shot?"

"Twenty-four hours ago, I guess," said Warrick. "A little more. Both wounds happened at the same time."

The paramedic looked up at Warrick sharply. "He was shot twice?"

"Yeah," Warrick said lowly, and he knew now every ear in the room was tuned in. "In the left shin."

"That one a through-and-through, too?"

Warrick shook his head. "No. But the bullet's been…removed."

"Jesus." This from Greg, who was looking at Warrick with undisguised awe and Warrick could see the question he was itching to ask, knew that he would ask later. _How the hell did they do that?_

If the paramedic had a reaction, he hid it well. He was all business as his questions continued.

"Has he urinated since the incident?"

"No. But he's been vomiting a lot. We tried to keep him hydrated, but…"

The paramedic had another explanation. "Shock," he said.

Warrick knew it, but he still cringed when he heard the word. He was nagged by the thought that he hadn't done enough for Nick. He had kept him warm and hydrated, and at one point had even tried to elevate Nick's legs above his head. But that had caused Nick so much pain that Warrick thought better of it, and he had wrestled with the validity of his decision ever since.

Warrick offered more information without being prompted. "He has a concussion. Lost consciousness."

"How long was he out?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there. Couple hours, at least, I guess."

"Could he tell you what happened?"

"Yeah. He said he got hit on the back of the head with a tire iron."

"That's good."

Warrick looked at him skeptically and the paramedic added quickly, "That he could remember the events prior to the concussion."

The other paramedic joined them. "What are you dealing with?" he asked his partner.

"Septic GSW; through-and-through to the left upper quadrant. High-grade fever; one-oh-five. Shock. He's stable, though. We can wait until we get him up top to start fluids." He looked over at Carrie. "How's the woman?"

Warrick followed his gaze. Sara and Catherine were on either side of Carrie now. A silver emergency blanket had replaced the officer's jacket. Catherine had her arm around her, talking to her soothingly, and Sara was holding the oxygen mask in place, which Carrie, in her agitation, kept trying to remove.

"Her breathing's more regulated. She has a mask on. She's hypothermic. Not critical. Has a knee injury that seems to be giving her quite a bit of pain. Gave her some morphine, but the pain's hard to assess. She's non-communicative. She's pretty agitated. I gave her Ativan, but it hasn't settled her down much. She could wait for the other team to get here if we can get her to calm down."

"Let's give her a few minutes, see how she does." The paramedic looked back at Nick, then nodded to the two sheriff's deputies who had come in with the stretcher. "Okay. Let's load him up."

The two paramedics positioned themselves at either end of the cot, ready to grasp Nick's legs and shoulders and transfer him to the stretcher.

"Wait." Warrick stood next to the paramedic at the head of the cot and grasped his arm. "Wait a minute."

The paramedic shook his head. "We've got to get him up those stairs and get fluids in him. Now." He tried once again to grasp Nick's shoulders, but Warrick's grip tightened.

"_Wait, damnit_!"

All eyes were on Warrick and they watched incredulously as he went to Carrie and removed the oxygen mask, then scooped her off the floor into his arms. He carried her over to the cot and set her gently in one of the chairs next to Nick. He held her steady. Whatever she had been given was doing the trick, because she was definitely starting to relax. He kept an arm around her, afraid she would sway off the seat.

Carrie looked at Nick, his eyes closed, his body still. She shook her head back and forth. She finally found words. "Not saying good-bye. Can't."

"Then say hello." Warrick looked Carrie in the eyes, made sure she was focusing on him. "Carrie. Listen now. Nick's not dead. He's got a fever, but he's going to be fine. He's not dead, Carrie."

Carrie looked at him in confusion, not believing. "But you said…"

"I know what I said. It was a trick. I'm sorry, Carrie."

Nick stirred, feeling Carrie's presence next to him. He pinpointed all of his energy into moving his right arm and hand. He reached for her. Carrie grasped his hand, then bowed her head and wept. Tears of relief, Warrick knew, but her body once again shook with sobs. What she said next let him know that she really was out of it.

"That wasn't funny, Warrick," she accused between sobs.

Warrick put both arms around her this time and hugged her tight. "No, girl. It wasn't funny." He knew he'd have to wait for another time to explain to her what had happened, how he had taken Turnbull down, how Brass had arrived.

"We've got to move him now," one of the paramedics said firmly. Warrick nodded and tried to get Carrie to release her grip on Nick's hand, but he ended up prying her fingers away from his. The men moved Nick from the cot to the stretcher and began to carry him toward the door. They paused when Nick called out. Warrick heard his name, stronger than he thought Nick would be able to say it. He went to him, leaving Carrie with Sara and Catherine.

"Whatcha need, bro?" Warrick asked.

"Get Carrie out of here, Warrick," Nick said. "Don't leave her down here, man."

Warrick realized Nick had heard the paramedics talking about Carrie waiting for another unit to arrive. He grasped Nick's hand firmly. "No way. I got this. I got this one, Nicky." Nick returned the pressure and Warrick watched as he was carried out of the room, the passage lit by the beams from the flashlights of Greg and Grissom, who were following behind. Grissom paused briefly and put his hand on Warrick's shoulder, looked him steadily in the eye. There were no words spoken, no need for any, and Warrick simply returned his gaze and nodded an affirmation. But Greg just kept moving forward, seemed to Warrick pretty motivated just to get out of that room.

Warrick had called it right. Greg was more unnerved by the scene in that basement than he wanted to admit. The room smelled of blood, and he could see the crimson-stained cement at the far end, knew it was the blood of Jenna Scott and Ruth Murphy and Allison Harrington. Names he had come to know so well these past few days. That his friends had been held here for over twenty-four hours was horrifying. But the most disturbing thing was the sight of Caroline Brighton, crumpled on the floor in near hysteria. He barely recognized her. She was so far removed from the confident, poised woman he had so recently seen that he couldn't fathom what might have happened in this room to bring her to this. He knew it would all come out, but for now, he didn't want to know, wasn't sure he could handle knowing at this moment. For now, he just wanted to go up the stairs, wanted to be by Nick's side as he was tended to, wanted to ride with him to the hospital and assure him that this was all over now.

Catherine and Sara wanted to assure Carrie of the same thing. They huddled over her, watching her with cautious relief as the sobs abated. Warrick came to them and knelt in front of Carrie and took both her hands in his. "I've got her," he said to the two women, the tone of his voice letting them know they were no longer needed. What he and Carrie and Nick had shared here was not over until Nick and Carrie were safely on their way to the warmth and cleanliness of Desert Palm, and until then, he was, as he had always been, their stalwart support. He was not yet ready to relinquish his role.

"Come on, girl," he said to Carrie as he lifted her up. "Let's get out of here." He carried her to the door, looking overhead briefly as he heard stomping feet in the rooms above him, supposed it was the SWAT team. He wondered fleetingly why it had been Brass and his officers and not SWAT who had first entered this room, but the thought quickly passed and he focused on his goal. He walked out to the landing and looked up at the fifteen steps in front of him, flashlights at the top entrance illuminating the passageway like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel. He smiled at the analogy and with great satisfaction he did what he had so desperately wanted to do an hour ago. He held Carrie in his arms and without a backward glance carried her up those steps, away from this killing field, and out into the pure, crisp autumn air.


	29. Chapter 29

The slab of meatloaf in the center of his plate was soggy and indeterminately seasoned. The green beans heaped in a sloppy pile next to them were so undercooked that they squeaked between his teeth when he bit into them. The mashed potatoes were lumpy, the dark brown gravy puddled in the rounded hollow atop overly peppered. And never had a meal in the Desert Palm cafeteria tasted so wonderful. Warrick attacked the food with gusto, Tina seated at his side, watching him with both bemusement and concern.

Warrick paused long enough between bitefulls to smile reassuringly at his wife. He was warm and fed, or close to it, and for the first time since he had entered this hospital where Nick and Carrie had been taken, he felt relaxed enough to let his guard down, grateful to be out of the emergency room waiting area now that Nick had been taken up to surgery. The ER was hectic and bewildering, as it always was. The two teams of paramedics who brought in Nick and Carrie hustled them back to the curtained off rooms, accompanied by the doctors and nurses who had met them in the ambulance bay. Neither Warrick nor anyone else who had followed the paramedics in was allowed back, despite the loud protests from Warrick and Greg. If it hadn't been for Tina, Warrick was sure he would have caused a scene resulting in the involvement of hospital security.

Tina Brown had spent the hours since Warrick had been discovered missing at her parents' house in Summerlin. She let them fuss over her and comfort her, but nothing they could do or say could allay her fears that she, a bride of less than three months, would soon be a widow. She had collapsed into her father's arms and wept after she got the cell phone call from Dr. Grissom telling her that Warrick was unharmed and he was going with the team to Desert Palm to be with Nick. She got there just after they had arrived, and just in time to prevent her husband from plowing over an orderly who was trying to bar him from following the paramedics.

She calmed Warrick down by promising to tell him exactly what the doctors would be doing to Nick. She didn't usually work an ER rotation, but as an RN at the hospital, she knew her way around ER procedures well enough and could tell Warrick with confidence what was happening to his friend. Only then did Warrick ease back into the waiting area and finally accept the kisses that his relieved wife showered upon him. Tina walked Warrick, and the rest of the team, through the tests that would be done to evaluate the level of Nick's electrolytes and blood loss. A new IV would replace the saline line the paramedics had inserted. She was guessing, based on Warrick's description of blood loss and vomiting, that a central line would be inserted and she suspected they might give him a blood transfusion as well. There would be medication to increase his blood pressure, medication to decrease his pain. Antibiotics to fight the infection. Then when he was stabilized he would have x-rays taken to evaluate damage to the tibia and scapula and a CAT scan to assess any trauma from the blow to the head.

Surgery was an inevitability. But without knowing the results of the x-rays or examination, Tina was unable to describe exactly what would be involved. At the least, the shoulder wound would be debrided, damaged tissue removed and the wound cleansed of any foreign matter that had entered when the gun was forced into the bullet hole. As for the leg, a lot depended on what the x-rays had shown. If there was no damage to the bone that required surgical repair, then most likely the surgery would involve stitching the sliced muscle inside the leg, and then more stitching to close the wound.

Warrick listened with a growing sense of calm. He couldn't have repeated back what Tina told him, but it didn't matter. He listened well enough to know that when he put it all together it meant that Nick was finally being taken care of, being given exactly what he needed by people who knew exactly what to do.

Carrie, too, was being taken care of. An MRI had revealed a torn meniscus, as Carrie had suspected, but her prediction of a torn ACL as well was, thankfully, not fulfilled. Like Warrick, she had become much calmer when she knew Nick was in capable hands, and she had the added bonus of the Ativan to quell her nerves. She was in a fourth-floor room for the night, and Warrick went to see her after he had finished his meal. Tina had informed him that he had astounded all witnesses by being the only sane person in the history of Desert Palm to request a second helping of "mystery meat." Tina's label for the loaf sounded more like a warning than a term of endearment, and he had chewed up two of the Rolaids she had held out to him just in case. So far, though, he just felt satisfyingly full.

He stood hesitantly in the doorway of Carrie's room, not sure if he should enter. She was lying on her back, her eyes closed. She looked so peaceful, her features so relaxed, that he hated to wake her. He entered the room softly and stood beside the bed. He fidgeted a little, then brought a chair over and sat down. He wasn't as quiet as he had intended to be, and Carrie stirred. She opened her eyes and smiled at him drowsily. Warrick returned her smile.

"Hey. How you feelin'?"

"Mmm…warm," Carrie murmured. "And comfy." They had given her something for the pain, and it not only took away the pain, it made her feel as if she was floating above the crisp white sheets, as if she was swaying back and forth on gently rocking waves. The feeling was a little disconcerting, but it was also incredibly relaxing. She tried to focus on Warrick.

"Nick out of surgery?"

Warrick nodded. "Yeah. Just now. They won't let any of us see him until tomorrow morning, but Tina got an update. She said they removed a good-sized bone chip from his leg, but they didn't need to do anything beyond stitches to the muscle. No bone damage to the shoulder, which is good, but there's quite a bit of soft tissue and muscle damage. He's got a tube in it now to drain the infection. That infection and pain management are the focus now, Tina says. She figures he's here for 10 days at minimum. Maybe two weeks, depending on how things go. A stint at the rehab center after that."

"But he's okay?" Carrie asked nervously.

"Yeah," Warrick assured her. "He is. The CAT scan didn't show any abnormalities. Now he just needs time. Time to heal."

"Th…that's…good," Carrie muttered. She was floating again, and she closed her eyes, let herself drift.

Warrick smiled gently at her, then tucked the pale blue blanket more snugly around her and left the room. He was ready for his own bed, ready to let his wife pet and fuss over him, snuggle against him as he surrendered to sleep. More than ready. But he knew it would be a temporary lull. He'd be back here tomorrow to see for himself that his friend was recovering.

Warrick wasn't the only one who returned to the hospital the next day. Despite Grissom's instructions that his team was to stay home and rest until shift started, all of them had straggled in to see Nick, as had Brass. Nick was so heavily sedated on pain medication that he hadn't even known they were there. But it didn't matter. They knew _he_ was there, and that's all that they cared about. It wasn't until Grissom's second visit late in the morning that Nick was lucid enough to participate in conversation.

Nick's first question made Grissom look away guiltily.

"Did you call my folks?" Nick asked.

Grissom had been a coward about notifying Nick's parents, and he knew it. His memories of the last time they had come to stand vigil were hauntingly vivid in his mind. The pleading in the mother's eyes, eyes so like Nick's. _There must be something we can do._ The anguish in the father's voice. _Ah, Pancho, what the hell you got yourself into? _Right or wrong, this time he had waited, waited for an outcome.

"They were notified that you were going into surgery. We didn't call them before that. I'm sorry, Nick. They'd be here for you now if we had. They can't get a flight out until this afternoon."

Nick shook his head, or tried to, anyway. He couldn't seem to get any part of himself to move. "No. You did the right thing. Can you call 'em? Tell 'em not to come. I don't…I don't need 'em here this time."

Grissom raised an eyebrow, but Nick didn't try to explain. He'd wait until he was sure he could talk to his parents with more focus than he was managing now, with more certainty in his voice than he had now. God, he was so tired. The pain medication that was pumping through the IV did its job, and he felt nothing, nothing but leaden. He had to think about each word his mouth formed before he spoke it, and it was a huge effort. As much as he wanted right now to call his parents and assure them that he was okay, he knew he'd have to let Grissom field that one, for the time being, anyway. He would like to promise them that he'd come to the ranch for Thanksgiving, but it was just three weeks away and he had been told that at least two of those weeks would be spent in this hospital room and then "we'll see after that." He wasn't sure what that meant, but he had a pretty good inkling that it didn't mean he'd be going back to his house in two weeks. Rehab, he assumed, but he had been too out of it to ask.

"Are Carrie's parents coming?" Nick managed. Depending on how many of the details they had been told, he wouldn't have been surprised if Carrie's mom and dad had also tried to get a flight to Vegas to comfort their daughter, to see for themselves that she was okay. The thought of Carrie's parents here was somehow comforting. They would fuss over him, which would be nice, but they wouldn't make themselves sick worrying about him like his would. He wouldn't have to watch their anxious faces, worry about them losing sleep at night as they thought about him in this hospital room. Carrie's folks would just be…easy.

Grissom shook his head. "No. I think she said something about flying to Texas to see them and then going back to Atlanta from there."

Nick closed his eyes and his head sank further onto the pillow. He made a noise-part moan, part sigh-and Grissom watched him with concern. He put his hand lightly on Nick's uninjured shoulder.

"I'll let you get some rest," Grissom said. He started to leave, but then he came back to the bed, remembering something. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out the ring that he had brought from his desk drawer in the lab.

"I thought you'd like this back," Grissom said.

Nick opened his eyes with effort and the ring swam in and out of his vision. He imagined himself reaching for it, grasping it and putting it on his finger. But he couldn't get beyond picturing it, his body not responding to his commands.

Grissom recognized his struggle. "I'll make sure it gets with your things," he assured Nick.

"Thank you," Nick said gratefully. He wanted to close his eyes again and sleep, but there was something he had to clear with Grissom while he was here.

"Gris?" Nick said tenuously. "I'm sorry. Sorry I never…never told you about me and Carrie."

Grissom pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up onto the bridge of his nose, as he so often did when he was formulating thought into speech. He looked at Nick carefully, making sure that he held his gaze.

"Nick," Grissom said, "there's nothing to be sorry for. Sometimes we all have a need to keep things to ourselves. We keep it even when we know that maybe it would be easier not to. But it doesn't make it wrong."

"Okay," Nick said simply and that was all, but Grissom could see the worry that was in his face, still flushed with fever, ease away. Nick gave up his battle to stay awake, and he closed his eyes, once again oblivious to the presence of anyone else in the room.

Grissom went into the hallway, half expecting to see Caroline Brighton there. She had been released earlier in the morning, armed with a knee brace, a pair of crutches, and some pain medication, but she had yet to leave. She was reluctant to be far from Nick if he should ask for her, which he had done three times already that morning. He never seemed aware that he had called her name, but she was sure he knew she was at his side, stroking his hair, murmuring to him, holding his hand when he moaned in pain as a nurse examined the dressing on his leg and the bandaging around the drainage tube that was in his shoulder.

But that wasn't the only reason Carrie had stayed at the hospital. She frankly wasn't sure where she should go. She wasn't ready to travel yet, and in any case there was no way she was going anywhere with Nick in the hospital. She would see him through his hospital stay and the start of his rehab. She had told her parents she'd be with them for Thanksgiving, but in the meantime she was still a Vegas visitor. Catherine had insisted that she stay with her, but as honored as Carrie felt that the team seemed to have adopted her and wanted to care for her, she really just wanted to go back to Nick's. Catherine and Sara had questioned her, trying to get her to evaluate if that really was a sound idea. They weren't sure she could get around without help, but they had a larger concern. Warrick had told them what had happened at that house, how Turnbull had terrorized Carrie, and none of them could get the picture of Turnbull lurking outside of the bedroom window out of their minds. It didn't seem possible that Carrie could.

Carrie had told them that was all silliness. She was plenty used to getting around on crutches and didn't need anyone to help her, and Nick would rest easier if he knew the place was being looked after. It made sense for her to stay at Nick's. She could tend his plants, take care of his mail. It was a matter of practicality. It sounded good when she said it, Carrie thought, but she couldn't voice her real motivation for wanting to be at Nick's. She knew why she wanted so badly to be there, and it had nothing to do with practicality. The truth was, she just wanted his things around her. She _needed_ his things around her, knew it would give her a sense of calm and assurance when she was worried about him. She needed to putter in his kitchen where he had whipped together one of his savory omelets, needed to thumb through his colorful nature books, needed to curl up in his bed, the familiar scent of him still clinging to the sheets.

They decided on a compromise. Carrie would stay at Nick's and agreed to call upon Catherine, Sara, or Greg if she needed any help. Sara and Catherine went grocery shopping and stocked the fridge and cupboards, made Carrie promise to call if she needed them for transportation. They had returned her rental car for her, useless to her until the brace was off her knee, and she would be many months back in Atlanta by then.

_Back in Atlanta._ Carrie knew she had obligations there, but for now she'd have to deal with those responsibilities long distance. She called her friends and let them know she was doing well, called the therapist who had taken her case load and got an update on the progress of her clients. She talked to the neighbors who were boarding her horses, got their assurances that both animals were fit, sent them another check to pay for their care. She surprised herself at how easily she abdicated her responsibilities and was even more surprised at how comfortable she felt in doing so. Her single focus now was Nick.

The first week in the hospital was a rough one for Nick. The sepsis was harder to get a grip on than the doctors had hoped, harder to find just the right antibiotic to kill the strain of bacteria that kept Nick in the restless throes of a fever that at one turn would abate and at another would spike so high he lost all sense of where he was or what had happened to him. When the fever wasn't claiming him, the pain was. The morphine pumping through him was enough to lure him into a false sense of security in his more lucid moments. He felt nothing but the now-familiar leaden weight of his own body as he lie still on the bed, and it seemed that all his pain sensors had simply shut down. But then he would move, toss restlessly from the fever, or simply forget himself and shift on the bed. And then, as it had earlier when he tried to move his leg or toes after the bullet had been removed, the jet of pain that shot through him would literally take his breath away. As she had been before, Carrie was there. "Just breathe, baby," she'd say, and he'd find air again, begin to relax under the soothing murmur of her voice, the soothing touch of her fingertips.

Nick didn't remember much of that first week. But by the second, the infection had been almost cleared, his temperature reduced to near normal, the stabs of pain in his leg and shoulder when he chanced movement an annoyance that kept him bound to the bed. He had a morphine pump and could control the amount administered himself now. Warrick, Catherine, Greg, and Sara would all find their way, singly or as a group, to his room when shift was over. They'd fill him in on the cases they were working on, keep things light with laughter and banter. He wouldn't use the morphine pump when they were there, didn't want them to see his thumb press that button that would provide his relief. But as soon as they were gone, he'd give in, embracing the leaden _nothingness_ that replaced the throbs of pain.

He was worried about Carrie. The previous week of vigil had taken its toll on her and she looked drawn and tired, visibly thinner from a week of literally forgetting to feed herself at regular intervals. She'd come in with the team in the morning, one of them stopping by to pick her up. But then he'd convince her to let them take her back so she could rest. He wanted her with him, but his days were filled with regular visits from doctors and nurses who checked his vitals and marked his chart, examined or changed the bandages on his leg and shoulder, questioned him on his level of pain, emptied the bag on what he referred to alliteratively as the "fucking Foley."

But things were calmer at night, toward suppertime, and he needed her then. It was the busiest time for visitors at the hospital, family and friends off work, and he watched them parade past his open door bearing gifts and flowers and treats and balloons. He needed her then. Needed her companionship, needed her touch. He would listen for her approach, knew the sound of her crutches squeaking and plopping as the rubber tips came on and off the tiled floor. He knew he grinned like a jackass when he saw her enter his room.

They had a routine. Carrie would come before supper, bring him magazines and books, would read to him when he was too drowsy to focus on the words and read for himself. She would order a meal and eat with him, assuring him that the food really was quite tasty. He knew better; he'd been downing the stuff three times a day now that he was on solid food again, but at least he knew she was eating a rounded meal, so he never tried to talk her out of it.

She watched TV with him, brought the Scrabble game and played it with him on the bedside tray they served him dinner on. He lost so many times he convinced her he was at too big of a disadvantage and couldn't concentrate through the pain. She scowled at him and told him to press the button on his morphine drip, then. He wouldn't, and she would shake her head at him in exasperation. He talked her into switching to gin, which he was good at and she wasn't, and somehow the pain didn't seem to interfere with his concentration any more.

Nick knew he was being selfish. He realized that her business here was concluded and now she was here on her own time and her own dime. He knew he should try to convince her to pick her life back up and leave now, rather than later. But he doubted that he could get her to go anywhere while he was still in the hospital, and he'd have time enough without her when he got out of here. For now he was going to enjoy her visits. Which he did, immensely.

There were times, though, interwoven in the fabric of the easy companionship, that awkwardness would snake in between them, and they couldn't seem to build a bridge over it. Now they didn't have sex, and they didn't have crisis, to use as an outlet for their emotions. The words that they had murmured to each other with such honest intensity just before Carrie hoisted herself up into the hole in the ceiling of that basement room wouldn't come to them now. There were times, when Carrie adjusted the blanket over Nick and paused to stroke his hair, or when he took her hand as she read to him and she would look up, that their eyes would meet and it seemed that the words might be voiced. But then one or the other of them would look away, usually Nick, and the moment was gone.

By the end of that second week, Nick was in high spirits, knew his time at the hospital was nearing an end. He was anxious to show Carrie his newest accomplishment. "Pull the covers off my legs," Nick said. "Watch what I can do." He sounded proud and eager, like a little kid who had just learned to ride a two-wheeler.

Carrie smiled at him indulgently, but she obligingly pulled back the blanket and sheet so his bare feet were exposed.

"Watch, now," Nick instructed. Carrie saw his left leg and foot twitch with effort as the five toes on his foot rose in unison and pointed toward the ceiling. Nick squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced, and Carrie put her hand gently on his leg.

"I don't know, baby," she said doubtfully. "Looks like that hurt like hell."

"It did," Nick admitted. "But notice I didn't scream or pass out. Doc says if I can tolerate being moved to a wheelchair I can start rehab soon. Couple days, maybe. We're giving the chair a trial run tomorrow."

Carrie looked dubiously at the Foley and Nick followed her gaze.

"That fucking thing comes with, I guess," he said bitterly. "They say it stays until I have enough strength in the shoulder to hoist myself from the chair to get to a toilet. Gonna be a while."

The Foley was still the hardest thing for him to come to terms with. For that first week, when he was so sick, it was needed so his urine output could be carefully monitored. But now it had a more practical purpose. The debilitating pain in his leg whenever he tried to move it had kept him immobile and bound to the bed. He had a newfound respect for the caretakers who not only tended to the catheter, but also wiped his behind for him when he had more serious business to attend to and had to use a bedpan. He had never completely lost his sense of humiliation when they cared for him, but after a while that emotion was replaced by a deeply felt sense of gratitude that there were people in this world who had the compassion to care for a stranger in such an intimate way.

"When you're in rehab and start your therapy, the shoulder will start to gain strength," Carrie said encouragingly. "You're getting better, Nick, and getting out of here soon. That's what matters."

"Yeah, that is what matters," Nick agreed. "How 'bout you? How you doin'? You seemed a little quiet earlier. You okay?"

"Yeah," Carrie said. "I am. I'm just having a down day, I guess. I couldn't stop thinking about Maggie today. About all the women. About the role I played in their murders."

Nick shook his head at her. "Carrie. You didn't play a role in their murders. Richard Turnbull is a sick bastard. He didn't kill because of you. You know that. You even said that. Whatever connection he felt to you had nothing to do with the murders. Something inside of him is twisted, and he would have killed no matter what, even if he had never met you." He looked at her sternly. "You know that's true, Carrie. You can't beat yourself up over it."

"It's not entirely true," Carrie corrected him. "He killed Maggie because of me. He killed Maggie because she was the one he blamed for keeping me from him." She looked at Nick levelly. "Do you have any idea what that feels like, knowing that someone killed because of you?"

Nick knew she thought she was asking a rhetorical question, but the truth was, he did know. _ She would have totally, totally gotten between us. So, you know, consider that a gift._

"Do you remember hearing about the guy who stalked me, Nigel Crane?"

Carrie nodded, remembering how Nick had avoided looking at her when the name was mentioned in the layout room, surprised he was sharing it with her now.

"He killed a woman because somehow he thought that would please me. And every day since then I've had to deal with the fact that he had done that."

Carrie looked at him in surprise. There was so much about him she didn't know, so much she wanted to know. "How _did_ you deal with it?" she asked.

"Not _did_," he corrected. "Do." _It's not over for me; it's over for Jane Galloway._

"I deal with it the same way that you will. By realizing that it's senseless to beat myself up over something that was totally beyond my control. By realizing that even if some freak _thought_ I was a part of his life, it doesn't mean that I was. By realizing that there are times when you have absolutely no authority over what someone else decides to do. They can kill for you, or put you under the ground, or take you when you're bringing in the groceries. You hate that you have no control, but it helps, in a way, to realize that it was all _them_, that none of it that happened was anything you could have prevented. So you get pissed, pissed that they took your control away, pissed that you let it fuck you up for a while, and then you move forward. That's all you can do, Carrie."

Carrie looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you suppose I'm in the fucked up stage or the pissed off stage?" she asked, not entirely joking.

"You're too smart for either one," Nick said. "You're in the moving on stage, and if you're not, we'll talk it out until you are." Nick wasn't going to let her make the same mistakes he did.

"I wish you didn't know how to be good at this," Carrie said wistfully, knowing that she was responsible for part of the lesson.

"I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be," he admitted. "Sometimes the past sort of just collides with the present; throws you for a loop, you know?"

He remembered a few times when the impact of the collision had sent him reeling. _Nick, I'll have you removed from the case. You're confronting suspects before the evidence is processed. You're flying solo, cutting me out. What's going on? _And other times when he refused to let it. _Yeah, eighty feet underground, no A/C. Thought I was going to suffocate. I can't even get down there. Claustrophobic._ But then, _Just keep on going._ And he had. He knew that's what he had to keep doing, what Carrie had to keep doing. What they all had to keep doing.

But knowing it and doing it didn't always turn out to be the same thing. He had his own demons to fight about what had happened in that cement bunker. Warrick had tried to gently nudge him into talking about his experience alone with Turnbull, but so far he hadn't been successful. Warrick knew Nick moved at his own pace, but he also knew that wasn't always a good thing. He was surprised that Nick showed so little curiosity about Turnbull. Warrick himself wanted to know everything he could about the demented man who had held him powerless for twenty-four hours. But there was little to learn. The FBI had shown up just in time to take over the interrogation, much to Brass's chagrin, but they could get nothing out of the uncooperative killer. They knew he hadn't used pet licenses in either Atlanta or Denver to target his victims, but they would have to figure it out without him. It was bugging Warrick, too. He hated Turnbull, obviously, but he was also intrigued by him.

Nick wasn't. He had learned after Nigel Crane that sometimes it was better not to know what made a person tick. Otherwise you could drive yourself nuts seeking answers to questions that had none, asking _why me_? But he did have some questions of his own, and he relied on Warrick to help him find the answers. When Warrick visited him the next day, Nick looked anxiously at the manila envelope he was holding.

"That it?" Nick asked.

"Yeah," Warrick said. He handed Allison Harrington's autopsy report to Nick and watched Nick with growing concern as he quickly took it out of the envelope and scanned the pages.

"What are you looking for, Nick?"

Nick was silent, engrossed in the report. He looked at the photos of the girl on the autopsy table, of the ring around her neck left by the cord that had strangled her, of her torso with its missing tissue. He had remembered how the blood had flown so freely down her chest when he had seen her, remembered how the cat had still been swinging. He put the report down and closed his eyes, trying to block out the visions.

"Talk to me, bro," Warrick said gently.

Nick opened his eyes and picked the report back up. "She was twenty-seven," Nick said. "You said she was a lawyer?"

"Yeah, a tax attorney."

Nick sighed heavily. "She was so young. She had her whole life spread out in front of her."

Warrick didn't answer. There was more to this, he knew. He waited for it.

"I could smell the blood," Nick said finally. "The smell was so…thick…I thought that's what woke me up. He was raping her, and I thought she was alive. I tried to get him off of her, but I couldn't move." He looked at Warrick. "I couldn't fucking _move_," he repeated, his voice rising in anger. "The bastard was between her legs and I couldn't help her. Then he got off of her and I saw all the blood, saw she was dead. And the cat…the cat was…swinging. And I knew. I knew he had just killed it, just killed her, just sliced her up. Right in front of me. I tried to pretend I didn't know. Tried to pretend he had killed them before he took me down there. But I knew." He had just seen the TOD in the autopsy report, and he had been kidding himself if he thought it was going to say something other than what it did.

Warrick put a hand over Nick's. "Ah, Nicky. There was nothing you could have…"

"I heard her scream," Nick said, and Warrick looked at him sharply. "That's what woke me up. Not the smell. I know now. After the surgery, in the recovery room, I remembered. She screamed and screamed. And begged. But she wasn't begging him. She was begging _me_. Begging me to help her."

Warrick was speechless. The scenario Nick had described was horrifying, and he was at a loss for words of comfort. He knew that sometimes after a concussion and loss of consciousness that snatches of memory would return later, and he wondered how much Nick would recall. "What else do you remember?" he asked. He hated asking, but he knew Nick, knew if he didn't talk about it now that he had started, that he was going to be very reluctant to revisit it again.

"It's in pieces," Nick said. He remembered hoping that he had not been unconscious for hours, that he had drifted in and out. It was looking like that had been the case, and although that may have been what saved him from head trauma, it wasn't doing much good for his nerves. "No pictures, just sounds. I remember her screaming and begging. Remember the cat. It…screamed, too." He couldn't describe for Warrick the otherworldly yowl of the cat, nor did he want to. What haunted him the most was the thought of Allison Harrington looking to him, _him_, the only other person in that room who could be her ally, to somehow save her. And he couldn't.

"You talk to Adams about this?" Warrick asked cautiously. Paul Adams was the department psych. It was SOP after an incident such as the one with Turnbull that he schedule visits with the personnel involved. Warrick knew him well, and he respected his ability and compassion. He had popped in and out of his office on a fairly regular basis since May, and he had seen him twice in the last two weeks. Nick, of course, also had a relationship with him.

"Yeah," Nick said. "He's been by a few times." He acknowledged the worried look on Warrick's face. "It's all good, man. I just wanted to tell you about it in case…well, in case I needed you later." Nick's biggest fear was that he had actually seen the murder and the mutilation and that it would resurface at some point and catch him off guard, one of those sucker punches that threatened to take him down.

"Hey, I'm here for you, bro. You know that. Whatever you need. But you gotta keep talking to me, man. That silent thing you do when you're hurting is hard to get a read on."

Nick couldn't help but smile, feeling a little sheepish that Warrick had called him out. "Yeah, I'll work on that."

Warrick noticed Nick looking a little bit embarrassed, and he changed the subject. "So, I hear they're springing you tomorrow."

"Yep," Nick said brightly. "Gonna start rehab." He had proved that he could successfully sit in a wheelchair and tolerate being lifted from the chair to the bed, so he was still on schedule to check into the rehab center in the medical plaza across the street. He was excited about the new journey, but it was a nervous excitement, the nerves fueled by the uncertainty of how this all worked, what was expected of him.

By the end of his first day, though, he knew he would thrive there. They didn't waste any time starting him on his physical therapy, and even though he couldn't do much, it felt good just to be there. At the hospital he had felt…powerless…and here he knew that he had some control back. It was slow going, and he was still taking what he considered too much medication to manage the pain. He regretted it mightily when he decided he knew more than the doctors did and tried to cut back, and he couldn't get through his therapy without it. But even so, each day that he did the exercises to strengthen the damaged muscles to his shoulder and leg, he felt more and more of his strength returning. His therapist assured him that if he kept it up, he'd be back home in time for Christmas.

Carrie came every day, and he was more comfortable having her spend her days here than he was at the hospital. She cheered him on in his therapy sessions, brought him treats she had baked while trying to keep herself occupied when she wasn't with him. His biggest disappointment was that he couldn't be alone with her much. He was unable to wheel himself around in the wheelchair, his shoulder still too damaged to accept the pressure he put on it when he tried to bear down on the wheel rim and propel himself forward. And Carrie couldn't push him, dependent upon her crutches for her own mobility.

They were pretty much a threesome—Nick, Carrie, and the orderly Ramon. Then Nick finally got the head nurse, a no-nonsense woman in her late forties, to warm up to him with no small amount of Texas charm and a large number of Carrie's chocolate chip cookies. He got her to loose her grip on one of the mechanical wheelchairs she guarded so zealously—her philosophy was that they made the patients lazy—and with its use he gained even more control.

Now he could take "walks" alone with Carrie, much to the disappointment of Ramon, he was sure. It was obvious the young man had a crush on Carrie, or maybe it was on him—he was still working out which. Either way, the orderly's dejection was obvious the first time Nick motored by him, Carrie hobbling at his side, Ramon's services no longer needed. There was a small courtyard in the center of the building's wings, and Nick and Carrie liked to go there and enjoy the autumn days. The Indian summer still held, and Nick reveled in the warmth of the sun on his face when he went out. Carrie would sit on the bench under the plaza's lone tree, a large maple with golden and maroon leaves still clinging stubbornly to its branches. Nick had figured out how to maneuver the chair next to and slightly in front of her so that he was in position to not only make eye contact when they spoke, but he found that if he leaned in just right, they could have some pretty good make-out sessions.

At the end of his first week, he was in a celebratory mood when he sat with Carrie in the courtyard. She could tell that he was jubilant about something, and it didn't take much coaxing to get it out of him.

"I peed this morning," Nick announced triumphantly.

Carrie looked at him curiously, trying to decide what expression to put in her voice. "Um…congratulations?"

"No, Carrie. I mean really peed. Hoisted myself off of the chair onto the pot. No more fucking Foley."

His arm had trembled when he had taken it out of its sling and the pain that shot through his shoulder when he bore down on the arm of the chair about made him pass out, but he was determined to do it and by God he had. He would have felt more victorious, perhaps, if he could have taken a proper piss, standing on two legs, but he felt victorious enough. Ramon had told him he was acting like a toddler who was finally out of diapers and got his first big boy pull-ups.

Carrie smiled at him. "That's great. I know you hated that thing. But don't take things too fast, huh?"

"Nah," Nick assured her. "It's good."

The wind kicked up suddenly and some of the crimson leaves on the branches over their heads stirred and fluttered to the ground. Carrie pulled her thin sweater closer around her and Nick watched her with concern. "When you come tomorrow, you'd better bring a warmer jacket," he told her.

Carrie looked at him oddly.

"What?" Nick asked, not able to read the expression in her eyes.

"Nick, I'm leaving tomorrow. You know that."

Nick looked away from her quickly, not wanting her to see the surprise, the disappointment, that he knew was on his face. He knew what day she was leaving, knew it was coming, but he had pushed it far back in his mind, stubbornly had refused to think about it. He had gotten so used to having her at his side this past week that he had forgotten that's not where she belonged. He made himself look at her. She was wearing her hair loose—for him, he knew—and the wind caught one of the pale brown tresses and blew it across her eyes. He reached out and swept it off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.

Carrie watched him expectantly, eyes searching his, waiting for him to voice the truth of his feelings at this instant. But, as he so often did in moments like these, he looked away from her. Carrie shook her head at him, a sign of both disappointment and frustration. But he didn't see.

"We'd better get back inside," Nick said. "There's a storm coming."


	30. Chapter 30

Warrick set Carrie's soft-sided suitcase on the metal platform below the ticket counter. With both Carrie and Nick on crutches, he had offered to drive them to the airport and help with Carrie's luggage. Nick waited outside the line while Carrie showed her ID and got her boarding pass, and Warrick walked over to him.

"You really going to let her do this?" Warrick asked him.

Nick shrugged, pretending he had no idea what Warrick was talking about. "Do what, man?"

Warrick glared at him. "Knock it off, Nick. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You going to just let her walk out of your life?"

Nick's voice was a low warning. "It's my business, Warrick. And," he added, defending an accusation that wasn't there, "I didn't 'just let her' the first time." He remembered the sound of his fist connecting with the bedroom wall of their duplex, and later his tearful pleading when he begged her on the phone to let him go with her.

Warrick sighed. "You got to let it go. What happened before, the first time, you got to let it go."

Nick looked at him defiantly. "I let it go a long time ago."

Warrick met his gaze. "No, you didn't, and that's why you're letting her leave now."

"You don't know shit," Nick said harshly. "I'm not 'letting' her do anything. Carrie does what Carrie wants to do. She always has."

Warrick shook his head. "Maybe not this time. Maybe this time she's doing what she thinks you want her to do. You have to tell her how you feel."

Nick's anger was rising. "You don't know how I feel."

Warrick remained calm, not backing off. "I know you're in love with her." Apparently it was his role to point these things out, but Nick wasn't as receptive as Carrie had been.

"Look, Warrick…"

Warrick cut him off. "You need to talk to her, bro."

"Don't tell me what I need, Warrick."

"I could tell you a lot of things," Warrick said evenly, ignoring the warning in Nick's voice. He thought about telling him that he knew more about the ending of Nick and Carrie's relationship ten years ago than Nick thought he did, that if Nick asked her now what he had then the answer might be different. He thought about telling him that he saw the kiss that spoke more than words ever could in that cold cement room, that love like that wasn't something you just pretended wasn't happening to you. He settled for the one thing he knew would stir Nick up.

"You have more guts than anyone I've ever met, Nick, but you're scared shitless right now. You're scared you'll get hurt again. But she's not the same person now, and neither are you. You have to have the guts to find out what she'll say if you talk to her about how you feel, what you want. You can't be a coward about this."

The muscles in Nick's jaw tightened and he took a step toward Warrick. For a few seconds, Warrick thought Nick might actually deck him, but he just ended up staggering ineffectually on his crutches, dark eyes blazing.

Warrick took one more shot at it. "Just tell me right now you don't want her to stay, you don't want her here with you tomorrow and the day after that."

Before Nick could respond Carrie walked over to them and held out her boarding pass. "Check it out. First class."

Warrick grinned. "Picture that."

"Grissom and Brass got together on that one," Nick said. "They said no way were you going back stuffed in with the tourists with no room to stretch out your leg."

Carrie smiled. "You have good people here, Nick." She looked at Warrick. "And good friends." She beckoned for him to bend down and she kissed him on the cheek. "Take care of him," she whispered in his ear and Warrick nodded.

"Don't be a stranger," Warrick said, and Nick glared at him. "Come back sometime and I'll show you around this town the right way, not that tourist junk."

"I liked the 'tourist junk' pretty well," Carrie said. "What I saw of it, anyway. It would be fun to come back and spend more time."

"The hotels are decorated real pretty at Christmas," said Warrick, and then he added pointedly, "Aren't they, Nick?"

Nick was shooting daggers at him, but Warrick took no note. "Yeah," Nick allowed. "Real pretty. Did you, uh, want to go bring the truck around, Warrick, or should I just hobble to the parking garage?"

Warrick gave Carrie a final hug good-bye and looked over her shoulder at Nick, mouthing words to him. "Talk to her."

Carrie and Nick stood in awkward silence after Warrick left, the two pairs of crutches drawing curious glances from passersby. Finally Carrie spoke. "I guess I should get going. No telling how long the lines through security are." She looked nervously at the stream of travelers flowing from the ticket area headed to the gates, headed to tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner.

Nick looked at her with concern. "It's a big airport. You need to be in a wheelchair. I'll ask for one."

Carrie shook her head at him sternly. "I don't think you should be the one to lecture anyone on using a wheelchair." This was Nick's first attempt on crutches, and he really wasn't ready for them. He ignored both Carrie and Warrick's protests when he took his arm out of its sling and announced he was done with the chair and was going to use the crutches to see Carrie off. They pretended not to notice each time he winced in pain as his hand bore down on the left crutch, straining the still-healing muscles in his injured shoulder.

Nick knew when he'd been defeated. "Well, just take your time. You won't have to stand in line," he assured her. "That's what a first class ticket gets you these days. But they'd move you up anyway. They're kind to the disabled."

Carrie looked at him, perched a little precariously on his own crutches. "I bet I'm off mine before you're off yours," she challenged.

Nick grinned. "You're on. I'm calling you in a week to see how you're doing."

Carrie's eyes were glowing. "I'm calling you tomorrow to see how you're doing," she said softly.

Nick looked at her, long and silent. He eyed a padded bench and headed for it. "You've got some time," he told Carrie. "Come on." Carrie followed him to the bench and they sat down clumsily. Nick took both pairs of crutches and leaned them against the wall beside him. Warrick, loyal friend that he was, had given him an opening and damnit, he did have the guts to take it.

"Warrick's right," Nick said. "The town is really pretty at Christmas. And fireworks like you've never seen before on New Year's Eve. Maybe you could come; we could watch them together. I have some vacation time coming. We could spend some time together, Carrie. Just us, without work." He had seen enough in his profession to know that extreme circumstances sometimes thrust people together, but that they didn't always stay that way when the chaos was over. He wanted the chance to get to know Carrie again, to trust his feelings for her, when things were more…normal.

Carrie looked at him carefully, considering. She wanted to make sure she knew what he was offering. She didn't want to come back here just for some comfortable companionship and some good sex—okay, some terrific sex, if they both mended in time—and then leave again without anything more resolved between them than it was right now. She wanted what had happened since she'd left Atlanta, what might happen at Christmas and New Year's, to matter. She wanted it all to matter. She had said that to him once before, and she still meant it. Then, she hadn't wanted her life to be all about her relationship with Nick and have nothing else matter. Now, she was in a time in her life where she knew who she was and knew what she wanted, and she didn't want everything to be all about her career, either. Nope. She wanted it _all_ to matter.

"If I come," she asked, "will you take me on a gondola ride at the Venetian?"

"We'll go twice around," he said.

"And will you put your arm around me?"

Nick put his arm around her and held her close. "Yeah," he said. "Just like this."

"Then will you kiss me?"

Nick leaned over and cupped her face in his hand. He kissed her softly, then once again. "Yeah," he said. "Just like this." And he kissed her once more.

"And then will we talk about things, about us?"

"Yeah, darlin'. Then we'll talk about us."

Carrie smiled softly. "Then I'll come," she decided.

Nick returned her smile. "Good," he said simply. "That's good." He kissed her once more, this time longer and with more passion, and he only stopped when he felt the eyes of onlookers on the two of them. He grabbed the crutches and handed Carrie's off to her. She rose from the bench, and Nick watched her in admiration, wondering how she managed to move with such fluid grace even as she juggled crutches and shoulder bag and boarding pass. He got up too, but awkwardly, and grimaced when he put a crutch under his left armpit.

Carrie watched him with concern. She knew as well as he did that he was told "minimal use of the shoulder for at least six weeks," and only three had passed since the injury. She frowned at him. "You have to get yourself well, baby. Do what they tell you to do."

Nick looked down sheepishly but then met her eyes. "Yes, ma'am," he said. He knew he wasn't ready to use the muscles in his shoulder and every time he pushed down on the crutch he was reminded that the doctors really did know what they were talking about. But there was no way he would have escorted Carrie to the airport in a wheelchair, looking up at her and she down at him as if he were an invalid. That didn't mean that as soon as she was gone he wasn't going to be grateful to be back in the chair again. He would indeed "get himself well." He had four weeks until Carrie came for the holidays, and he didn't intend to just put his arm around her on some gondola ride when she got here.

Carrie smiled at him, acknowledging the mischievous sparkle in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen it since "the day that fucking bastard got hold of us," as Nick so eloquently put it. And, God, she had missed it. She knew she would worry about him a little less now while she was gone.

Nick wasn't going to let her have the last word. "You take care of yourself, too," he said. "Are you sure you don't want to have that knee 'scoped?"

Carrie shook her head. "No. I'll wait and see how it heals. And if I do have the surgery, it will be in January. I don't want to be laid up over the holidays."

Nick winked at her. "Good thinking."

Carrie blushed and Nick grinned at her. As practical and straightforward as she thought she was about things, he could still draw a blush out of her. And a pretty one, at that. He maneuvered in front of her and leaned into her, kissing her softly on the lips.

"You'd better get going. We'll see you soon, darlin'."

Carrie nodded, her own eyes bright with emotion, and then moved away from him, beginning her journey back to Texas, but not her journey home. That one had already begun.

Nick watched her until she disappeared into the throng of travelers, then made his way--painfully, he was now free to admit--to the pick-up area outside the double glass doors. Warrick was just pulling up and expertly cut off another SUV that was aiming for the open spot in line. The driver flipped Warrick off, and Nick smiled. Warrick got out and walked to the passenger side. He eyed Nick critically.

"What the hell's up with you? You're grinning like a Cheshire cat."

Nick knew it wasn't just Warrick's driving antics that kept the smile on his face. "Carrie's coming back," he told Warrick happily. "For Christmas and New Year's."

Warrick slapped his friend on the back so hard it nearly toppled him over. "Atta boy," Warrick commended. He took Nick's crutches from him and put them in the back seat, then supplied a strong shoulder to lean on as Nick hoisted himself up into the seat. Warrick shut the passenger door and then got into the driver's seat.

"You suppose it would do any good to try to get a room at one of the five-stars for New Year's Eve?" Nick asked. "I bet they booked up months ago."

"Maybe not. You might be able to get one if you had the right connections," Warrick said. He grinned at Nick. "And I just might have the right connections."

Nick smiled at him gratefully. Warrick knew his way around this town and the people in it, no doubt about that. "Thanks, man."

"Don't thank me yet," Warrick warned him. "It's probably going to cost you a pretty penny."

"I've spent my money on a lot more foolish things than this," Nick replied.

"Nick," Warrick said seriously, "I don't think you're being foolish. I think you're finally coming to your senses. You belong with that girl. Anyone can see that. I just wasn't sure you could."

Nick tried to scowl at him, but he was in too good of a mood to pull it off. "Does it ever get boring for you, being right all the time?"

"It's a family curse. My grandmother has it, too. But I've learned to live with it."

"Good for you." Nick reached across with his left hand to grab his seat belt and pull it down, but he winced in pain and let his hand fall away. Warrick watched him with concern and then turned around to grab something out of the back seat. He held out Nick's sling to him. Nick looked at it in astonishment.

"Where the hell did you get that?"

Warrick shrugged. "I thought you might need it, is all."

He helped Nick put it on and then reached across and buckled him in. Nick didn't even protest.

"Thanks, bro."

"It's a service I provide to the infirm."

Nick put his hand on Warrick's arm and met his eyes, looked at him with such intensity Warrick grew uncomfortable under his gaze.

"I don't mean about the seat belt. I mean thanks. Thanks for what you did down in that room, for watching out for Carrie. For watching out for me." He looked at the sling. "Hell, you're still watching out for me."

"Yeah, well," Warrick said lightly, "it's a habit I can't seem to break. In fact, it's a habit I don't intend to break. And I guess you'll just have to learn to live with _that_."

The vehicle Warrick had outmaneuvered honked in the line behind them, waiting to pull up into their space. Warrick yelled out the window.

"All right, all ready. Keep your panties on."

Warrick turned on the ignition and waited for a shuttle bus to pass before easing out into the lane of traffic.

"Where to?" Warrick asked. "Back to the center?"

Nick shook his head. "No. Not just yet. Nurse Ratched will yell at me for sneaking out without the chair." He noted Warrick's "I told you so" look without comment, then said, "Just drive. Just keep moving it forward."

He looked out the window, watching the images of the city he had come to call his own flicker past him through the glass. A wave of contentment washed over him, and he welcomed its return. Soon he'd have his full health back and he knew with certainty that he already had the support of a good friend, the love of a good woman. He felt a sense of completeness that he hadn't felt for the past ten years, since he had arrived in Vegas. For the first time, past and present came together not in a jarring cacophony, but in the gentle, blending tones of a well-rehearsed harmony. He leaned back onto the headrest, a hint of a smile on his lips, and tried to figure out what he was going to get Carrie for Christmas.

**

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**Author's Notes:** And so ends this journey. Bittersweet for me. Crafting this story has been a big part of my life for over a year. Going to miss it. If you've enjoyed taking this journey with me but have remained silent, it's not too late to acknowledge an author's efforts. My deepest gratitude is to those compassionate readers who knew what the reviews meant to me and kept them coming. There's no way I could have advanced this far without you. Thank you.


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